menarambo spawn

[gregga]

Got a nice large batch of pink eggs from a breeding pair of P. Menarambo last night. The eggs are attached to a large piece of slate. My best chance to grow them out would be:

1. Remove the slate/eggs and put them in their own tank with a seeded sponge filter and water from the main tank
2. Put the eggs in a tumbler
3. leave the eggs where they are

Also, do I need to jack the temp up into the mid 80s? feedback appreciated.
I will post pics later tonight if possible.

[Tom Williams]

Option 1 and get the temperature up to 86 f (30c) then see what happens - Feed the young with copious brine shrimp and fry food and do lots of water changes. Good luck!

[gregga]

meth blue was added tonight along with a 40 percent water change. temp is up to about 82...eggs are still a nice pink, so fingers are crossed. here's a few pics.....

[Vincent Fu]

Congratulations and good luck!

[seanwelsh1]

Well Done and keep us posted !

[emartin]

He didn't update here, but all the eggs got fungus on them unfortunately. Anyone know what he can do differently next time? At least the good news is now he knows he has a pair of P. menerambo...

[sidguppy]

erm

At least the good news is now he knows he has a pair of P. menerambo...

no

the one thing he does know now is that he has at least one female menarambo.

maybe he has a pair, but if the male doesn't fertilize the eggs or makes a botched job of it, the eggs will fungus.

the same will happen if 2 females go lesbian and act like they are a pair.

this is common with cichlids, especially when the fry has been reared artificially.
artificially raised fish loose all proper breeding care behaviour.
not a problem if there's little or no breeding care to start with, but a major pain in the butt if there is.

[polleni]

If the eggs are not fertilized, you will see them turning white very quickly, if the parents don't eat them on the spot.
If the eggs are fertile, you can leave them with the parents (quite a few hobbyists have had luck with this option) or remove them and hatch them artificially, in their own tank.
We prefer artificial hatching and we use a strong solution of methylene blue (we know that most people recommend a tiny amount of the chemical but we prefer our method) for the first two and a half days after the eggs were laid. Then we remove all the methylene blue (water changes or activated carbon if you prefer) and leave the eggs to hatch. Hatching rate is between 40 and 95%. Air is absolutely essential, the more the better, but the bubbles should not come in contact with the eggs.

Hope this helps.

George & Marina

[sidguppy]

AHA!

good one, George!

I've seen several spawns now, but the last 3 the eggs didn't turn pink, but stayed white

I started to think my eyes were bad or so. the last spawn was eaten by the male (or a lesbian female) that fish just ate the eggs right after the female laid them

I just wish they'd pair off properly......with a mate that knows how to do the job

there's 18 of em in the tank, so can't say that they cannot choose

if eggs are fertilized when do they hatch? 3 days? more?

[polleni]

Hi there, nice to see you here... and so active.

Mind you, the eggs are not necessarily pink colored, we have had fertile eggs with an off white color, the color of the eggs largely depends on the diet of the fish. Do NOT regard whitish eggs as not fertilized, unless you can see fungus on them.

Egg hatching depends on the temperature of the water among other things but 4 days is the average.

As for one of the parents eating the eggs, we have seen that many times with both pairs of Pe menarambo (actually this is their normal behavior) but we can ensure you that the eggs are fertile (we have grown a number of fry..). Now they are too old to change habits this is why we remove the eggs every once in a while. Removing them every time may cause them to stop breeding altogether since the tank will look like a "non safe" place for this..

We just hope this helps.

We can't wait to see your Pe damii breeding ! We will be the first to get some of your fry home ... we really love this fish !

[sidguppy]

How are the menarambo's doing now?

are they spawning again? keep us posted

[polleni]

What they mainly do is trying to outgrow their tank. When we got them we never expected them to grow so large. Literature stated 25 cm TL to be their final adult size but we already know that even 40 cm is not. When all five of them come close to the front glass their tank seems really crammed (a 2.5 m tank.. ).

One of the pairs spawns every 3-4 months and the other one every 2. Both pairs eat their eggs if left with them. We lack the space to grow some of them right now, our house is full of tanks growing fish.. (cichlids and catfish). We plan to keep and raise one brood in early summer though (if the fish cooperate of course) so we will have some fish for AFC in France (October 2009). We have decided to be very conservative on what fry we grow and in what numbers since it is quite difficult to find good homes for them. Many people ask us for Paratilapia sp. Andapa, Paretroplus damii or Pe menarambo and they seem surprised when we tell them that we are not eager to raise every brood.

We will copy a post we made some time ago in the British Cichlid Association forum, which explains the reasons for this decision :

We were both extremely happy to see (Paretroplus damii) juveniles again in our tanks and would like to take this opportunity to share some thoughts regarding the availability of this (and many other) species in the hobby.

As Tom (Williams) mentioned, these fish are not easy to keep and breed, they grow very large and they have to be kept in schools of at least 6 fish (preferably more). This in turn, calls for large tanks, therefore this particular species (as well as the Paratilapia sp. Andapa, for different reasons) are not the natural choice for the average hobbyist. The absence of spectacular coloration (the blues and yellows) doesn't help either.

Our experience with the Andapa revealed that a lot of people express their interest in them (we regard this fish as one of the most beautiful and interesting fish in the hobby) along with their best wishes for the fish to be kept in the hobby. Yet, when push comes to shove - in this case when fry are available - there is nobody willing to offer them a home, let alone a good one. We had to travel a lot and visit a number of European countries to give our juveniles to people who really cared (some of them are in UK) and still a lot of them remained in our tanks for more than a year. We know other members of this forum had the same experience with their Malagasy youngsters.

The same was proven to be the case with P. damii. A considerably small part of them will find new homes with people who really love and care for them however, the vast majority of the brood will remain "homeless" and will end up staying with their parents. Bear in mind that when these fish breed, they produce around 400-500 eggs which, with proper care, will become 300-400 juveniles. A lot of fish requiring a lot of space. They grow slowly but the tanks don't grow with them. Before you know it the next brood comes along. Then what?

The usual scenario is that a couple of hobbyists will be really interested in a species (e.g. the damii). They will be happy to house 10-12 fish (jointly). But if one bring a brood up, what is s/he to do with the remaining of the brood?

We decided a long time ago that we are not going to grow them and use them as feeder fish, we feel this is a blasphemy for these beauties. It seems equally sensless to let them hatch and then perish due to reduced care levels post hatching. As the damii's in particular are shoaling herbivores, there is not half a chance of the weakest dying due to sibling aggression. You take proper care of them, you are sure to end up with 300 youngsters as an average. What are the options then?

Unless someone is prepared to ask a petshop to house hundreds of them (which will presumably live a very dire life) it will take years before he/she can donate (not even sell) one single brood. Even so, no single petshop will house these numbers. Hence the only option seems to be to leave the eggs in with the parents to be eventually eaten either by the parents themselves or by their tankmates. The outcome is that the few who really want the fry can't have them.

A final example - this is a case we all know here. Look what happened with the E. canarensis, a species supposedly to be much sought after. The first shipment which arrived in UK shops was eventually sold to hobbyists who really appreciated that fish but the second and subsequent shipments remained in petshop tanks for months, despite the fact that a lot of people were "admiring" the fish and "wished they could have it". E. Canarensis don't grow large, they are not aggressive yet hobbyists preferred to buy other cichlids (usually more colorful) instead of them.

It comes to a stage where breeding fish (even endangered species) or taking them from their habitats for hobby related reasons doesn't make any sense. People (with the exception of very few) vote with their money - or what they fill their tanks with, and that's not Malagasy fish, amongst others. The majority of the hobbyists will buy what you see in the shops - which explains why these fish are there instead of other fish.

We have said this before and will repeat it here: it is us, the hobbyists, who determine which species will be available in our hobby. Making tank space available is one way to go about it but, understandably, there is so many tanks a person can have. Raising awareness amongst hobbyists, particularly new ones, could be another way. But at the end of the day, unless we do something, we will lose a lot of species from the hobby.

For ourselves, we have decided that come what may, certain species (like the Andapa, the damii, the polleni (Sonia Guinane and Dave Tourle have promised us some of their juveniles) etc) will always have a home with us even if that means we will not try new or different species.

George & Marina

[sidguppy]

this is a very good and thought-out piece, George;
and I think it should be a topic in itself, not hidden in a post about Greg's menarambo's (not that there
s anything wrong with those)

this is about the ethics and species conservation in our hobby vs the practical side of it; can it be done and if yes, should it be done.

like you I tend to go for fish that have interesting behaviour, not just coloration; although I will always have a soft spot for featherfins and Tropheus from Tanganyika.
wich in my book are fancy colored fish ..... imagine that.
for the average Malawi keeper Tropheus might be adull brown bad mannered fish with few colors if any and a load of nasty difficulties as extra baggage

I could write a very similar account like the one on Etroplus canarensis on Iranocichla hormuensis; highly popular and in demand for 1 single year and completely forgotten and out of the picture the next
....and a host of smaller Tilapine Africans.

non Rifters from Africa are stuck in the margin and likely will stay there. with very few exceptions

anything from the America's is bred by the thousands, even fish that aren't really suitable for any hometank, even 2,5m tanks.
species like Parachromis dovii or Cichla spp wich dwarf the largest damii or menarambo by a fair bit are for sale ANYWHERE.......

and -personal view- the best use I can think of for any adult Cichla is the BBQ
I've eaten these when I was in Equador years ago, together with adult Pleco's (another fish with highly BBQ usefulness and wholly unsuitable for the hometank) and they taste exquisite.

but a home tank for a grouping fish that reaches 70+ cm TL and swims like a trout? how big should the tank be?
who can afford such a tank, let alone the size of house needed to build it into?
still, they're on many stocklists and they sell like hot cakes.

whereas like you say, anyone foolish enough to raise 400 damii would be hard pushed to sell half or a third or less.

weird.

still think it's a bloody shame though. even Madagascar has species that fit perfectly in a regular sized tank. Katria for example. and any of the Ptychochromis species for people with a medium-large tank.
quite a bit smaller than adult Vieja, and I cannot count the number of people keeping those.

but even the smaller Malagasy fish are hard to find, if not nearly impossible.
and the same goes for many other Africans. Chromidotilapia, Stomatepia, Thysochromis, Hemichromis other than those inbred Jewels, Heterochromis, real Tilapia spp, the list goes on.

baffling.