by Mark Smith » Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:15 am
I would remove the Lamprichthys, just to be on the safe side.
This spawning situation reminds me of a friend of mine, Ron Sousy, who back in 1990 spawned Xenotilapia ornatipinnis. I did a write up on this species for Cichlid News volume 2 in 1992, page 18. Ron informed me that a few days after his X. ornatipinnis spawned, the brooding female transfered the brood to the father, and that on one occasion, he noticed that the brooding father transfered the larvae to another male.
Such behavior begs many, many questions for which there are no clear answers yet, but it is certainly enjoyable to theorize possible answers.
One idea is that certain female cichlids can mimic the coloration of a male. If I remember correctly, Konings has a photo of a female Melanochromis auratus taken in the wild brooding, showing male coloration. Or, could it be that in some circumstances, M. auratus may also brood the females eggs?
I did have a somewhat opposite situation with my Lepidiolamprologus nkambae recently. I purchased 5 wild caught nkambae from Blue Chip Aquatics, 2 males and 3 females, all adults and all very easy to discern their sex by looking at their genital papilla - large second opening for the female and small second opening for the male. I placed 1 male and the 3 females into a large aquarium, and within 1 month, a male and female paired off and spawned. A few months later, the male died. I thought to wait a couple of months before putting in the second male, and before I could do that, one of the other females had paired off with the widowed female and spawned, producing about 100 fry.
What had happened? Either this species has the capability of changing it sex, or males can sometimes masquerade as females? I cannot think of any other option at this point.
) and happy new year (a little in advance) to you too and to each "forumer" 
