I think my female is pregnant!

[cichlidchick]

Well my cichlid tank has been set up close to a month now and about a week ago my female and one of the males pretty much disappeared and a few days ago they reappeared. The make looks kind of beat up and the female is looking more colorful than usual and her throat is all lumpy and full looking. I'm thinking if she is I'm just going to let nature take its course and if any survive they survive. What do you all think?

[Lisachromis]

Well, if she's acting like she's chewing something, then odds are she's holding eggs/fry.

[cichlidchick]

She is acting like she is chewing on something and has also been hanging out at the back of the tank (180 gallon) head down on a bubble tube I have back there. I was thinking maybe she was oxygenating the eggs? I've been trying to read up on mating behavior to see if its normal for one of my males (the one that disappeared with her) to look kind of beat up, but all the info I can find is just very general and doesn't go into specific behavior, especially where the males are concerned. He looks kind of raggedy, hangs out at the top some of the time and is looking thin, but sometimes he eats and swims like normal. The rest of the time he seems like he's in hiding with the female. I'm also wondering if my original plan to let the female release the fry into the tank is OK. I'm not really interested in raising the fry but I don't want the female to get stressed out by other fish trying to eat the fry. I have almost 400 lbs of reef rock in the tank with lots of hiding places and right now I only have 3, 5" males, the 4" male that isnt looking too great, the female, and 5 small fish ranging 1"-3" in size.

[Lisachromis]

Well... the raggedy fish is probably being attacked by someone in the tank. If you don't want to raise the fry, you can just let her spit in the tank. The fry will most likely get eaten, but sometimes they survive. You won't stress the female by allowing this.

[ajsubotnik]

May I ask what type of fish you are keeping in this tank? Just a curious question...

-Andrew

[cichlidchick]

I'm still trying to figure out what kind of fish I have. I have pics just never got aroundto posting them. The 4 larger fish plus the female were purchased from a guy whose tank they had outgrow (the smallest of the large males a the only wholooks beat up) but all of these fish lived together in a 75 gallon for at least 4 years. One is an orange peacock albino pretty sure aulnocarus. The small male is kind of drab with a black pectoral fin. I think one is a blue ahli and I the largest looks like a A. Koningsi but not quite, but he is very peaceful. I have a few others in there but the are all very small. I will try to get some pics up asap

[Lisachromis]

Yeah, the pics should definitely help.