Spawning of Haplochromis sp. “Cross-bar”
By Michael Wolff
July 1998 Issue #15
Most people that are familiar with African cichlids, are familiar with the three main lakes: Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria. Few, however, are aware of the satellite lakes around Lake Victoria. Three of the largest of these lakes are: Lakes Kanyaboli, Nyamboni, and Sare. These lakes are located in Kenya’s Yala Swamp (Loiselle, 1996). The largest of these lakes is Lake Kanyaboli. It is home to many colorful haplochromines. I recently acquired two species of haplochromines form this lake. The one discussed in this article is Haplochromis sp. “cross-bar”.
Haplochromis sp. “cross-bar” is a rather bland looking fish when not showing off, but when it is in the mood, it can compete with the best of them. When not in color, the male is just like many other haplochromines, gray body with pale black bars. When they color up, the body takes on a pale green base color and the vertical black barring is very pronounced. In the center of each bar running laterally down the body are large black spots. Where the dorsal fin meets the body, there is also a line of black spots. The dorsal fish is a bluish red with each ray outlined in black. The anal and caudal fins are red with black outlined rays. There are “egg spots” on the upper half of the anal fin, and there are black bars running across the bridge of the nose, one between the eyes and one closer to the mouth. The females are gray with pale black bars and spots unless being romanced by a male, then the caudal area takes on a pale green cast.
I was getting ready for work one day and went down to feed my fish before I left. I noticed something strange going on in my forty gallon containing the H. “cross-bar”. I have one definite male, two females and one “unknown” housed with a colony of eight albino Pseudotropheus socolofi. Every fish in the tank was cowering in the corners except the male H. “cross-bar and the object of his attention. I had caught them in the middle of spawning. Luckily, my turning the main light on did not disrupt them. They spawn in typical cichlid fashion. The male “shows” to the female by quivering in place with fins erect. The male had cleared a space about five inches square on the sand bottom of the tank. He would quiver over the spot then dart away while the female would dart in and lay tow to three eggs. She would immediately turn around and pick up the eggs while the male would dart back in to release his sperm while she was picking up the eggs. She did not nudge the anal fin of the male as some African cichlids will. This was repeated six or seven more times. Every other time was a dry run with no eggs being laid. The male would sporadically swim away to keep the other fish in check.
After about a week, the female was being badly harassed by the male. I decided to strip her of eggs. I was rewarded with about twenty fry. They still had quite a bit of yolk sac left, but I put them in a 2 ½ gallon tank with a sponge filter and they did great. Approximately ten days later they were free swimming a taking freshly hatched brine shrimp. After a couple of days of just brine shrimp, I introduced some powdered flake food and they took it as well.
According to Loiselle (1996), Haplochromis sp. “cross-bar” was only collected in Lake Kanyaboli, and thus be very limited in number. Great care should be taken by responsible hobbyists to ensure that beautiful species like this do not disappear forever. Conservation should be the true hobbyists’ main concern, for if these fish disappear, so does your hobby. The End
Loiselle, P. 1996. Fulu of the Yala Swamp part 1: Overview to the fishes. CICHLID NEWS. July 1996.
Loiselle, P. 1996. Fulu of the Yala Swamp part 2: Husbandry and Conservation. CICHLID NEWS, October 1996.