Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys "Olimar" male holding?

[Marko Lenac]

yesterday I was doing my normal sunday aquarium maintance and decided to rearrange an Uruguayan tank. I catch all the fishes and decided to return a submitted male gymnogenys Olimar to his former tank containing 1 dominant male, 4 females of his species and 5 G. "Sarandi". so I had work for the next 5 hours.

after work I had a 2 hours sitting in my fish room looking at tanks and noticed the dominant male Olimar had a lot of bruises on his face (mouth and even eye). he was fighting all that time with the reintroduced male. but he was not opening mouth so the other male had a lot of advantage toward him. I never read anywhere that male gymnos incubate, and in my tanks only females did that, as well as all the females we caught in Uruguay.

so to make it quick, I caught the male and tried to strip him. he did not want to open his mouth like females (very easy) but in the end he released 19 little ones from his mouth!!

so did I not listen at cichlid school or it is really something don't occur often?

thank you all...

[taeniopareius]

IIRC this is written in the geo book too [on Rosario I].

[Mack Emmons]

Weird. I guess this pays tribute to the saying, Life finds a way.

I read an article about an Apistogramma species that practiced both substrate brooding and mouth brooding. Applying each when in specific conditions. I'm curious to know if this is similar, a very specific circumstance has initiated paternal brooding.

[dogofwar]

Thanks for the observations!

I seem to remember that my male Bujurquina also carried around babies in his mouth. And males of some of the Barombi-mbo fish do as well.

I didn't go to Olimar but I don't remember ever seeing holding males in the wild.

[Felipe Cantera]

Yes, that's possible....I have seen that with several males of diff. populations (= Olimar, Rio Yi, Centurion, etc)....and I am talking about males in the wild.


Felipe

[dogofwar]

Way cool, Felipe.

Any ideas why sometimes males hold and sometimes they don't?

[Felipe Cantera]

Way cool, Felipe.

Any ideas why sometimes males hold and sometimes they don't?

No....no idea!

[EC]

No....no idea!

Felipe, you've seen both blue and yellow lips males holding?

Ciao Enrico

[Felipe Cantera]

Yes, both!!

Hug