Acei holding eggs?

[jkh772]

Greetings! I have a group of white-tailed Acei- I have had 2 spontaneous spawns in my community cichlid tank (3 1st brood, 8 2nd brood). I can't determine what I did to induce them to mate/spawn, I only realized they spawned after I saw the babies.  Last spawn was 6 mo ago. The community has gotten a bit crowded and I'm afraid they aren't breeding because of the density. 

I am trying to get them to intentionally spawn in a separate tank. I put (what I think?) are the male and female in a separate tank. I saw some "dancing" behavior between them on the first 2 days in the separate tank, and since then the female has been hiding in the corner ever since for the last week.  I removed the male and now I see her swim out some but most of the time she still is hiding behind the driftwood. 

Is there a way to confirm if she is holding eggs? I saw her open her mouth (like a yawn) a couple times which made we worried she isn't holding, but most of the time she is hiding with her mouth closed and I don't see her come out for food. 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[Fish Folk]

Quite possibly holding. Can you link a video? Take more photos? This is a difficult shot to make a call on.

If you think she's holding, and want more fry, you can move her to a temporary planted tank with shelter where she can spit after about 3x weeks. Here's a video my son made about 4x years ago. As an important note . . . these were hybrids, and that is very much discouraged in the hobby. We did _not_ earn BAP award points for our fish club on account of this. But this video will explain how we moved her out...

Here's a different BAP video for breeding Auratus. The "dancing" you mentioned is probably them spawning. Sometimes you see if, but often you won't...

Now, you can try to "strip" your holding females of eggs and hatch using an egg tumbler if you want to try. Here's how to do that...

 

[jkh772]

@Fish FolkThanks for the info and the links! those were very helpful.

The female has started eating again so either I was overly optimistic the first few days or she ate her eggs. 

[RalphValentine]

On 3/31/2024 at 7:52 AM, Fish Folk said:

Quite possibly holding. Can you link a video? Take more photos? This is a difficult shot to make a call on.

If you think she's holding, and want more fry, you can move her to a temporary planted tank with shelter where she can spit after about 3x weeks. Here's a video my son made about 4x years ago. As an important note . . . these were hybrids, and that is very much discouraged in the hobby. We did _not_ earn BAP award points for our fish club on account of this. But this video will explain how we moved her out...

Here's a different BAP video for breeding Auratus. The "dancing" you mentioned is probably them spawning. Sometimes you see if, but often you won't...

Now, you can try to "strip" your holding females of eggs and hatch using an egg tumbler if you want to try. Here's how to do that...

 

Thanks for sharing them, I appreciate you. 🙂