Breeding Pelvicachromis taeniatus

I’ve always had a soft spot for dwarf cichlids, and when the chance arrived to purchase some wild-caught Pelvicachromis taeniatus, I gambled that they’d fit into my 180-litre community tank without problems. As things turned out, they settled in quickly, but it was obvious that in such a busy aquarium they’d never be able to raise a family. So I moved them to a small breeding tank where I was rearing some halfbeak fry and decided to let nature takes its course. The water in this tank is mostly rainwater with a little tap water for hardness and slightly acidified by filtering through Sera peat granulate.

After waiting a couple of weeks nothing seemed to have happened, so I thought I’d move the fishes back to the community tank and free up the breeding tank for something else. Big mistake! Upon removing one of the caves to catch the female, I discovered a batch of newly-hatched fry wriggling about in the sand. The female at once starting to take the babies into her mouth, and I assumed she was going to eat them having been disturbed. So I scooped up the babies and put them into a small floating cup with some holes drilled in it. This makeshift breeding trap would keep them safe for the time being.

As it happened, the mother wasn’t eating the babies -- she was rescuing them! Only after everything had settled down a few hours later did I notice that the parents were guarding what remained of their brood, about ten or so little fish. At this point I was confused about what to do next. The babies I’d put in the breeding trap were safe and could be easily reared, but could I look after them as well as the parents? My experience with kribs, Pelvicachromis pulcher, was that the parents were excellent care-givers, keeping the babies clean of parasites and leading them between patches of food.

I was worried that returning the babies in the trap to their parents wouldn’t work, on the assumption that the parents wouldn’t accept the new fry and either kill them or ignore them. So for the first few days I reared some of the babies, and let the parents rear the rest. After a few days of this, some of the babies with the parents looked distinctly larger than the ones I was rearing myself, suggesting that the parents did a better job of feeding them than I was doing. I was feeding the babies mostly Hikari First Bites, but the parents were supplementing this with algae and aquarium detritus of various kinds, leading their school of baby fish from one foraging patch to another. So I decided to try out returning the babies in the trap to their parents. I did this by sucking up a baby into a pipette, and then depositing it into the school of baby fish the parents were caring for. Surprisingly enough, this seemed to work. The mother fish would spot the youngster and try to corral it back into her brood. Unfamiliar with its parent, the baby fish would try to swim away, but she’d overtake it, suck it into her mouth, and then carefully release it into the group. The baby’s schooling instinct would kick in, and it’d remain in the group from then on. Once I was sure that the re-introduced youngsters were being accepted, I placed the rest of the fry from the breeding trap into the main aquarium a few at a time.

One of the best things about allowing the parents to care for the brood is that the aquarist can watch the full repertoire of broodcare behaviours. The male and female alternate their broodcare stints, with the off-duty fish swimming away to feed. The mother seems to be the fish that looks after the fry most of the time though, with the father only taking over from her for short periods. For the first day or two, she didn’t allow the male anywhere near the fry, and it seems that only as time passes does she gradually learn to trust the male. If alarmed, the fish in charge will shake its head and the baby fish will sink to the bottom of the tank and stay very still.

The fry themselves are growing rapidly. Their main diet is algae brought in from a pond in the garden plus Hikari First Bites powdered flake food. As they have grown, they have started chasing daphnia but can’t quite overpower them. Tiny bloodworms are accepted though, and with some reluctance at first, frozen lobster eggs.

Two weeks on and the parents are still taking extremely good care of their offspring. Each night they are gathered into a coconut shell cave by the parents who sleep alongside them. During the day, the female is usually in charge, though for short periods both parents will wander off to forage. At the first sign of danger (i.e., me) one parent will swim straight to the fry and begin the head-flicking behaviour to get the fry to stop moving. The other fish usually swims in the other direction and often in an ostentatious sort of way, very reminiscent of the ‘broken wing’ behaviour some birds exhibit to lure predators away from their chicks.

By their third week of life the fry are active little fish that forage some distance away from their parents. They are still too small to manage any but the smallest daphnia and bloodworms, and keeping them well fed on powdered flake and algae is now become quite challenging. Like other baby fish, these Pelvicachromis taeniatus fry have ravenous appetites!

By their third week of life the fry are active little fish that forage some distance away from their parents. They are still too small to manage any but the smallest daphnia and bloodworms, and keeping them well fed on powdered flake and algae is now become quite challenging. Like other baby fish, these Pelvicachromis taeniatus fry have ravenous appetites!

The parents stop showing any interest in the fry after about a month. Though not outwardly hostile to the fry, they generally keep them away from their cave and appear to be more interested in producing another brood by this time. The fry are very active, schooling fish that feed on various things including algae, tubifex, bloodworms, and daphnia. After about six weeks the fry have changed from being silvery and covered in small spots to pale beige with prominent dark banding along the midline of the fish. There is some variation, with some fish having brighter colours on the dorsal fin, but it isn’t clear to me yet which are the males and which are the females.

By the tenth week, the colours are reall starting to show up. Time to find them some new homes! The parents have tried to lay new batches of eggs, but seem to eat them (or the newly-hatched fry), perhaps stressed by the sheer numbers of potential threats in the small breeding aquarium now.

Pelvicachromis taeniatus fry, immediately after hatching

Pelvicachromis taeniatus female with fry four days after hatching

Pelvicachromis taeniatus male with fry aged about 17 days

Pelvicachromis taeniatus fry about 56 days after hatching

Pelvicachromis taeniatus fry with mother, ten weeks after hatching