I want to start breeding my african cichlids need help on setup

christopherhicks · 06-28-2007, 02:56 AM

I want to start breeding My Aulonocara Jacobfreibergi what kind of setup will I need. I dont want to spend alot of money on setup so I was thinking 10 and 20gal tanks. I amy also breed my yellow labs too but they will not bring in the money I need to pay for tis hobby.
Here are some pics

Hre is there tank

ZeroSystem · 06-30-2007, 01:29 PM

Beautiful fish! Jakes are really awesome. I can't say I have any experience in keeping them, let alone breeding 'em, but I have done some research on them recently. From what I understand they shouldn't be kept in anything less than a 75 gallon tank. I'm sure 10's and 20's would be fine if you wanted to use 'em as a place to separate holding females to, but thats probably about it.

Tommy Gun · 06-30-2007, 03:10 PM

I agree with Zerosystem in that a 10 or 20 gallon may be a good place to separate holding females as they approach 'spitting-time', for lack of a better term, as well as a relatively good place to grow out fry at least in the short-term future. This was the method I used when I was breeding yellow labs myself (for fun, not so much for profit as you point out is hard to do with these very common fish), since I would rather allow my females at the time to spit on their own rather than forcing them using some of the common methods. I found that the fry could be grown out to a reasonable size at which most of my LFS would take them in return for some store credit, or at least to a size which would allow them to co-habitate with my adults in my main tank without becoming a snack.

As far as a set-up goes, I think that the set-up you show in your last picture is a good start, with my only suggestion being to maximize the amount of caves or 'nooks-and-crannies' available to your fish to establish a territory within. IMHO, doing this may help with any aggression issues you are almost certainly going to encounter as well as possibly providing some 'encouragement' to breed. IME, it took a little while for the ball to get rolling, so to speak, but once started, I would consistently find one female or another holding on a very regular basis. In general, it is usually easy to spot a holding female and my method was to wait about 20 to 23 days after noticing a female holding before I moved her to a quarantine tank (10 gallon tanks in my situation) so as not to provoke her into spitting too early. The same sort of thing applied to the number of resulting fry...I first was able to grow out only a few fry, but as my females became more experienced with breeding, I wound up having 20 or 30 fry in each 'batch'.

Admittedly, I only bred a small variety of cichlids...more specifically yellow labs, M. Auratus, P. Kennyi, and Johanni...so your experience will obviously differ from mine, but I think that you can become very successful with breeding cichlids based upon what I have read/heard throughout my time in the hobby thus far. I wish you the best of luck and hope you can keep us updated on your progress so we can all learn from your experience(s).

christopherhicks · 07-01-2007, 02:23 PM

Thanks Tommy Gun I can always count on you for som advice. I know I am going to have to spend some money but that I have its the space I am lacking. I think I am going to try and get another 55-75gal tank in the next few weeks I try to get all of my larger tanks used in good condition. I will keep you all posted. I am on my way to the lfs for some other supplies and a few fish. Thanks!