firestorm Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 A few nights ago I was doing water changes, and doing one on my shell dweller tank. To my amazement I saw a baby swimming around near the bottom. I stopped doing a gravel vac at that very moment. I may have sucked up some babies, I don't know But in total I have counted 3 babies. By looking at them I am guessing they hatched about a week ago. Strange thing is, my 2 ocellatus adults are on either side of a piece of driftwood, and they will attack each other when the other goes near their side of the wood. And one baby which is slightly larger than the other 2 hangs out on one side with one of the adults, and the other 2 fry hang out with the other adult I am guessing I have a pair of them in there, since my 3rd ocellatus jumped out of the tank about a month ago :cry: But anyhow, I am excited regardless because if they are a pair, they have now started spawning :smokey: Here are a couple pics I took, baby is circled in red, and you can see how tiny they are because the substrate I use is sand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiscesGirl Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 How on earth did you spot the little guy??? Well done and congrats on the spawn. No idea what the behaviour could mean? I wonder if the custody battle is a sign of good parenting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallisneria Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Congrats on the spawn! Shellie babies are so cute and tiny. When I had my pair they didn't spend any time together either. I never really saw them fighting but they were always on completely different sides of the tank. I had hundreds of babies so they must have atleast spent some time together They have a lots of fry. One batch I saved had 40-50 babies. There was a tiny cloud of fry swimming around the mom's shell and somehow they all fit inside when they got scared. The babies are super tiny but I found they would eat powdered NLS grow(crushed to a powder in a mortal and pestle). They also grow very slowly. In my experience the parents eat the fry after a few weeks, once they are ready to spawn again. They aren't colony breeders like Neo. multies are. So if you want to raise up some babies you will need to remove them after a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 How on earth did you spot the little guy??? I guess I spotted him with luck. And yes they are very tiny and cute. Thanks Val for the info. I never did see more babies than this so maybe considering it's their first spawn, they ate the rest of them. I will see about moving the babies to another tank. It shouldn't be hard if I can get them to swim in a shell I have noticed too that they don't pay much attention to their babies, guess they aren't as good of parents as many other cichlids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallisneria Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 The only hard part of removing the babies was that both the mom and the babies swam into the same shell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Haha, well I hope that doesn't happen. I guess if it does I will be moving mom over too for a bit until she comes out of her shell, or the babies do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbemis Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Congrats on the spawn. Mine have spawned a few times but the babies always get eaten. Good luck with your batch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Thanks, yeah I have to get a tank ready for them and take them out soon so they don't get eaten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallisneria Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 I found if you wait until they are a bit older they come out of the shell more and it takes more to scare them into swimming into it. Then suck out as many as you can out with a syphon tube. I usually put the syphon hose into the tank right next to the shell. Start the suction and put my thumb on the end. Then I wait without moving for the fry to come out of the shell. Once most of the fry are out, I take my thumb off the hose and quickly suck out as many as I can. Works pretty good and you can catch most of them this way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Considering I have only ever seen 3 babies in the tank, and I have spent alot of time in front watching to see if I can see anymore, I think trying to catch 3 of them will be a breeze, hoping I don't have to rip out plants to get them lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordo Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 In theory it should be easy. But in real life they can hide pretty good if they want to. I have had times where i have ripped apart the whole tank trying to find a fish. Couldn't find it and put the tank back together and 20 minutes later i see if swimming around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2008 Haha, yeah I have done that before. Well I managed to remove the 3 babies I have seen, and they are nestled in a 3.5 gallon tank with some shells. Hopefully their next spawn will have more babies. This is their first spawn so it is expected that they didn't have as many babies. On average how many eggs do these guys lay? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbemis Posted December 14, 2008 Report Share Posted December 14, 2008 When I was doing my research on these guys I found that what people were saying is that they lay on average of 20-30 eggs depending on the size of the female. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firestorm Posted December 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2008 I figured they didn't lay very many, considering their size. My guys are about 1.5" right now, so they probably didn't lay very many eggs being it's their first time, and I didn't find many babies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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