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Breeding Pelvichachromis Taeniatus
by Joseph Gardner
July/August 2006, Issue #37
I have always liked the krib, and the kribensis is still one of my favorite fish. I had seen the taeniatus both in pictures, stores and at auctions but had not been able to afford them. Then at the last Grand Valley Aquarium Club Semi-Annual auction in April 2006 I was able to survive a formidable group of “Homo lastbidicus” and landed a pair from Chase.
I took them home long enough to set up a tank at work and installed them in a 6 gallon tank with black gravel and a java fern covered piece of wood I had also scored at the auction. I then added some nijas grass. For water I used 3 gallons of spring water and 3 gallons of distilled water.
After 4 days of lights and running the filter, I added the fish. The pair of fish proved to be quite shy and I only rarely saw them. Since I work at Mental Health agency, there were a number of questions about the fish that no one ever saw. I simply told them they were “Invisible Fish” or asked them to describe the fish ‘they saw in the tank.’ There were some rather dubious responses. However, to encourage the taeniatus to come out more, I put in some fancy guppies as dither fish.
The female taeniatus did come out more but male remained secluded. I remember thinking ‘Man, this looks like breeding behavior but they’ve only been in the tank for a couple of days.’ So I just brushed off the thought. After the weekend was over, I was watching the tank to see the female (since the male virtually never came out) and lo and behold, there were ‘specks’. As with kribs, the parents ‘herded’ the fry around the tank and the fry busily browsed amidst the plants and the gravel.
The male took the lead in this herding and protecting the fry. He actually drove off the female for about 2 weeks and every time she came out, he would chase her. He chewed off her caudal fin over one weekend
and I was afraid she would die. I put her in a container in the tank and not only did her fin grow back but the male eventually let her return to herding the fry. By this time the fry were about ½ inch in length.
They were slow growing fish but fascinating to watch. The fish I brought in for breeder’s program were about 4 months old because I had not been able to get the club meetings. Two further notes about this fish: 1) I am glad the Pelvicachromis taeniatus was the 80th species of fish I’ve spawned and more importantly 2) when I caught these fish to bring in for the breeder’s program, I found out that the parents have spawned again and the fry (based on size) are about 3 weeks old. The parents had raised the second brood while the first brood was in the tank. I suspected the pair had spawned because the parents, especially the female kept chasing the juvenile fish up into the plants and would only leave them alone when the juveniles were 3 inches up the plants or more. After I took out the older fish, the parents and the fry went right back to the herding behavior and I noticed the second brood has even more fry than the first brood. The End