Cross fostering Tropheus & Eremodus Fry???

[JimmyTheFish]

I just realised and interesting occurrence with my Tropheus duboisi.

I have had a female carrying a mouthful of young for a while and today she spit them out into a floaty I had her in. To my surprise she has been incubating a mixture of T.duboisi young and some Eretmodus cyanostictus fry of which I have a breeding pair of in the same tank.

It appears as though she has taken up the goby fry that were released into the tank by my pair and further incubated them as her own. Very strong maternal instinct as opposed to egg/fry parasitism.

I was wondering if anyone else has ever seen this phenomenon?

Cheers

James

[JimmyTheFish]

Here are some pics. Sorry for the quality.


Female T. duboisi in floaty



When I put the net into to she if she would spit out a few fry, she dropped the wad and here is the result. 5 Erets and 5 dubs.

Cheers

James

[Mark Smith]

Fascinating, thanks for sharing that observation Jimmy. This just goes to show us that there is still a lot about cichlid behavior that we do not fully understand.

Rich Birely's article in a recent issue of Cichlid News Magazine on spawning Haplotaxodon microlepis resulted in a female Rhamphochromis holding some of the H. microlepis's eggs and juveniles.

[James Shingler]

Wow, amazing that the baby dubs did not eat the baby gobys.

[Dan Woodland]

Great shots, thanks for posting!

I've had C. gibberosa males incubate eggs until they were viable fry!!

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

Wow, amazing that the baby dubs did not eat the baby gobys.

I share that amazement,

my malawis if there is more than a day or 2 difference in development need to be separated as their just save with the younger ones.

[JimmyTheFish]

Interesting thought about the Tropheus eating the gobies. That never crossed my mind as Tropheus are strict herbivores, having said that they do pick each other appart during territorial squabbles so I guess that was a possibility. Luckily They didn't bother with them. My tank has a pile of rocks in it and the gobies are almost impossible to catch so I pretty much leave them alone when they are brooding. Holding Tropheus are easier to catch as they are so food oriented they will pretty much swim in the net when food is around. Hopefully she keeps picking up the goby fry as it has proven to be a much easier method than pulling all the rocks out to catch them.

Interesting observation about your Cyphotilapia Dan. I've never heard of males incubating before. That's pretty cool. Maybe bi-parental mouthbrooding is more a factor of circumstance/environment than hard-wired behaviours in some species. Just shows how adaptable cichlids are!

Happy to hear/discuss more about cross-fostering in cichlids and bi-parental mouthbrooding.

Cheers all

James

[James Shingler]

Interesting again. My Tropheus Ndole babies (same Genus but not species) are not strict herbivores in captivity (I am not sure I believe there are any cichlids that strictly stick to a herbivour diet all their lives seem to remember seeing a clip of Tropheus joining in with eating fry of other species in the wild during times when this is easy). I have seen quite young (under a month old) Tropheus sp."red" take newly released Ophthalmotilapia ventralis fry I had in the same tank though the adult Tropheus left them alone. Maybe they had victim way of swimming or something?
Sorry not seen any cross fostering with my Tropheus or any of my mouthbrooders, except Tropheus picking up the eggs of different types of Tropheus or crossing in the past (I do not keep different types of Tropheus together any more). But then my goby cichlids do not breed much and what I get seems to disappear in a Tropheus tank I assumed eaten by either Tropheus or the other gobys.