I have six Cyprichromis Coloratus Jumbo Yellow's I'm trying to breed (that I got from Tony - Grizzly's Dad, last April) . Everything seems to be going well; the dominant male is fully colored and courting the 3 females constantly, but they haven't spawned yet. Now, it's only been 1 1/2 months since I re-sealed the tank, so I'm wondering if I'm just being impatient?
FYI, here's a video of the dominant male courting the oldest female ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZnJCGnF8XEThe conditions:
- Temperature is 79.5 ... holding steady thanks to some great advice from MCA
- pH is 7.6 and climbing slowly, since I put my two big Holey Rocks back in
- The water is maybe too hard (due to adding too much buffer), running at 706 microsiemens (21.4 dH German Hardness) on my meter and I guess it should be 606-620 for Lake Tanganyika. I'm dropping this slowly by adding less buffer in my weekly 35% water changes
- I've been feeding them New Life Spectrum Optimum Fresh H20 Flakes, small amounts 2 times a day. I've also been feeding them Baby Brine Shrimp daily for the last few weeks for protein, since I read it was good for getting them into breeding condition
- Ammonia and Nitrites are 0, Nitrates are around 2.5 ppm
I've also noticed over the last few days that the dominant male is really keeping the other two males in the rock pile, much more than before. Is that a sign?
How do you tell when the female is first holding eggs? Is it really obvious?
Also worth noting, they spawned last year once and the smallest male in the tank now is the surviving fry. Now I've made the 125 gallon tank back into a species tank to help things along.
Sorry for the long message, but I figured the information would help.
Thanks for any help you can give!
