Dwarf cichlid pics, include inka 50's

[Nathan]

this is one of my fave the male blue ram!

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n203/discus123/IMG_2053.jpg

heres some of the inka 50's, some of them a bigger then these guys but were hiding at the time!

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n203/discus123/IMG_2061.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n203/discus123/IMG_2077.jpg

[Noddy65]

Nice pics there Nathan...

Mike

[Nathan]

yea alex took em!

so r u able to sex them mike? or they still to young?

[Th0mas]

Hate to disappoint you but both pics are all females (all four of them I think).

Thomas.

[Nathan]

thats ok theres another 4 in the tank. there a lot bigger then these ones an have much more predomnant black markings, not sure if that means there male or thats what they look like when there older.

[Nathan]

oh an the 4 of them are the same 2 in each pic

[Noddy65]

Hmmmmm...sounds like might be very female heavy?
What do you think Thomas?

Mike

[wickedglass]

I take it they're from the same batch of F1s as my inkas ... the boys will have a red line along the edge of the caudal fin, it's quite distinct from the females and shows at even a small size. also the body should show a silvery blue flash more pronounced than the girls. If Heinz picked them out for you as 4 pairs, then it's a very high probability that that's what you have. ;)

[Robdog]

.....have much more predomnant black markings.

This would say to me that they might all be females. The female baenschi get the full "tiger" like vertical stripes whereas the males are hardly visible. Only in courtship colours are the males lines really visible and even then mine were never that prominent. Chris is spot on with the red caudal bordering and blue sheen on the males. I think there is a photo of Thomas's pair somewhere here.

[Robdog]

Found it. Probably not the most flattering shot of dad. But mum is showing her brood colouring.
Props to Thomas for these
http://www.discusforums.com/forum/files/family.jpg

[Nathan]

so rob the one on the right is the dad an left the mum?

ill have to have another cloe look at em all. but i thnk its at least 50% of them female!

[Noddy65]

Yep Nathan...thats the male on the right...Id be surprised if ours are that colour yet but you might be able to see the red edge to the caudal fin...

Mike

[Nathan]

they arent like that yet but there is a difference between the females an the males that i can see, most of the females have developed that tiger striping sorta thing already!

ill have a look tomorrow

[Noddy65]

The red edge might be very dull or difficult to see under some lighting....have a better look tomorrow

Mike

[Nathan]

yeah i will.

ill see if alex can get a few more pics of hopefully what i thnk look like males

[Th0mas]

Hmmmmm...sounds like might be very female heavy?
What do you think Thomas?

Mike

Mike,

Can't say really unless the whole batch is viewed. All I know is one of my batch has turned out to be male heavy (small batch - first spawn from the second pair, around 20 in total) only 2 can be certain to be female. The rest, I'm 85% certain they're males.

Thomas.

[Robdog]

Yeah you can't really see the red border on the caudal fin in that photo unfortunately. The pose he is in that photo is his sneaky pose. He knows that she has fry to look after so he puts on his "I only want to hug" routine when hugging is only the beginning of what he really wants! He also knows that she's likely to slap him so he doesn't display fully and risk damage to his fins. Who said fish were dumb?



Or am I reading too much into this?? :?

[fishgeek]

seperation and elongation of dorsal fin spines will be evident on males too though prehaps later

andrew

[wickedglass]

My Inkas are doing the shimmy shake today, unfortunately they did it in the holding tank with about 15 kribs, 13 viejita, a couple of aga double red females, a bunch of guppies and a male borellii (come to think of it, there's a spiney eel in there somewhere, too, but he's so good at hiding I keep forgetting about him). If there's eggs when I have a look in a couple of days, I'll have to go artificial or surrogate them out. I tried to take the pair out into another tank but they go all shy, and love it best in a tank that's like flinder's station at peak hour.

anyway, the first vid is them defending their lovely, freshly landscaped (with nice fine sand) flowerpot from a persistant aggie d/r female (my boy died a couple of days ago, anyone got one I can buy?).

http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i208/taxman69/?action=view&current=inkadefensez.flv

this one is them doing their thang, I guess, and what a lovely thang it is

http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i208/taxman69/?action=view&current=Inkashenanigans.flv

below are the male and female ... sorry about the quality, but again had only the phone with me and not my gfs camera.
enjoy

[Noddy65]

Hey Chris
Is that from the same batch that Nathan got his?
They should be easily sexable then...
Wow..certainly looks promising doesnt it..those videos are very nice.
Is that silica sand you use?
How do you get such a big hole in the bottom of the pot?


Mike

[gingerbeer01]

Chris,

with my breeding pots like those in my community tank - I have siliconed a saucer on underneath. This lets me whip and mum and bubies away from danger to a holding tank in one fowl swoop. If I ever have a species that insists on digging something out I can always drop a bit of gravel in the holes for them to remove.

It looks like the inkas like to dig a bit out of there cave prior to breeding from your pictures.

Anyways that is the theory. It doesn't work when they decide to breed in the drift wood instead. I am thinking of making up a little sign saying "honeymoon shack" to help them find the right place to breed.

Steve

[wickedglass]

hehe
the problem is relocating the mum or both parents...once I take them out of the tank and put them somewhere more private, they become really skittish and hide in the tiniest little crevice they find. because they're F1 I guess they haven't had their danger response behaviour bred out ... but that's debatable, as I have F0 apache (speaking of digging, they're like the pyramid builders!) and they're not at all skittish and take to relocation quite well.
the idea with the saucer is great, though. I think I might have to improve on that and use small panels of glass instead ;) we got some spare laying about.

[Nathan]

mine are no where near as big as chris's.

i havnt been able to see the red on the cadual fins, i think it maybe due to the lighting an also a little due to their age.

[wickedglass]

hey Mike
this is how I get bigger holes in the bottom of my pots,

[wickedglass]

I took out the Inka eggs today to artificially incubate them ... I just take the whole pot out, put it in a scientific measuring beaker with some of the tank water and float it in the tank. I replaced the flowerpot, so the Inkas still have a pot to protect, though. I hate taking eggs away from my fish (they hate it, too), but sometimes it's necessary to take them for the young to have a better chance of survival. There's about 40 eggs.

These fish are from the same batch as yours, Mike, and I use fine riversand from the gardencenter which I've spent hours and hours washing, lol ... I have a 20 liter bucket of washed sand now to use where I want, but it's a pain in the butt to do it.

[oskastolz]

Chris

I have first dibs on a male, the 3 I bought from that batch definitely seem to be female, might have to get you to check it out.........

Anyone else got a male up for grabs...............

Oska

[Th0mas]

Chris,

Any updates on the eggs?

Cheers,
Thomas.

[wickedglass]

yup, there's 13 free swimmers now with a small clump of moss and frugal feedings of BS nauplii. I'll try to remember to take a pic tomorrow.

[wickedglass]

Here's some pics of the measuring beaker and a couple of fry, bellies full with BBS. They weren't all hanging out together, unfortunately. enjoy

oh, the interesting thing about these, is there's an aggie DR female in breeding yellow hanging out under the jar driving away all intruders ... if you listen closely you can hear her yell: "GO AWAY! MYYYYYY FRY!!! MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSESSSS!!!"

I'm gonna call them all "Beaker" I think ... that first one kind of reminds me of him!

[wickedglass]

ok, no more Beaker ... the reason ... the protective aggie demon female got into the jar somehow and ate them all ... better luck next time :/

[Th0mas]

Sorry to hear such tragic loss. Was the jar in the same tank as she's in?

[Merrilyn]

Ohhhhh Chris. I'm so sorry to hear that, just when they were doing so well. :(

[wickedglass]

it's a pity I lost the first batch, but ...

here's what's happening :)

they laid again and this time there's just over a hundred eggs by my count ... sorry about the quality of the pic, but I'm gonna blame that dead horse of a phone camera as good as I can ;)

anyway, they laid in the community tank again, so I did another covert pot swap and the eggs are bubbling away in another beaker ... this time the beaker rim is above the tank lid and has a lid of its own, I learned my lesson on that one :P

I'm curious what the hatch rate will be.

I've set up half my rack now ... I need to build one more tank and then it's complete. I already have 2 tanks going, one is divvied in 2 and the other into 3 compartments. I should have taken some pix when I was building it ... anyway, Sekan is a legend for that hammerlock shelving post, I went and got one of those and built the tanks into it... the point to me mentioning all this is that I'll have some nice fry growing tanks very shortly! BEAKER SHALL RISE AGAIN!

[wickedglass]

here's what I did with the hammerlock shelf ... needs one more tank to go across the bottom shelf, I'll be making that when I have a little time, probably in the next couple of days, yay.

this is our studio, my gf and I come down here to work every day ... what better place there is, I don't know, but sometimes when I'm blowing glass and I watch the fish (yes, I can do both) I sometimes get to see them do some wonderful things. We love our studio!

this part is only about a quarter of how big the space is and behind me there's a couch, a little kitchen area and two more 4ft tanks on either side of the couch. The couch is a fold out bed and sometimes we sleep with the fishes, when we need to keep our eyes on a kiln firing ... sometimes just for the h.ell of it ;)