Quote:
Originally Posted by Bocourti
Hi Ari,
I agreed that if you start with a good quality fish (as breeder), you do tend to get good quality fries.
Are those the blackbelts you bought from Joe? If they are, they pretty good looking...second only to the batch Joe brought in years ago from Jeff Rapps.
As for the green algae, try it.....especially if the CA colors faded. It works for me at least.
Breeding female turning black.....based on my experience so far(which is not alot), almost all turn white and black except Bocourti and Melarunus. But then maybe I am wrong. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that even after breeding, I don't find the breeders to have their color fade. in fact, I find their colors brighten up. Well, at least, my breeding pairs do.
Breeding CA is easy?! How about you passing me some hints and pointers, please...hints and pointers to breeding Argentea, Regani and Bocourti? Not having much luck with these chaps. Well I guess breeding CA is easy, once a pair is found.
Joe brought in some Pearsi a few months ago. I think about the same time as the Blackbelts. Not sure if his farm had started producing Pearsi.
BTW, which CA have you bred?
Cheers
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aah tough question to answer...i cant recall all the type i had bred but i asure you its quite alot, starting off with the synspilus in 1984 ( synspilus had always remain the top of my fav cichlid) . but i do know what i havent bred, Firemouths is one of them, man, i havent had any luck in keeping what suppose to be an easy beginer's cichlid, im convince firemouths are determine to die on me.
yup...i got them from Joe, since he is the only one i know of who carries them in KL, and getting good CA in malaysia is quite a hassle. and for this reason i have totally cut down on cichlids, with only a lone blackbelt and a pair of Blue azul peacock bass in my tanks. but i do have several fenes, argentea,godmani,synspilus and zonatus in my uncle's pond. havent seen them since the day i dump them there...hopefully there are still alive.
dont really have any more time for fishes as my business is understaff...besides i found a new inspiration from breeding headstanders
i have no arguments that the blackbelts from joe are good , but not actually the best of the best, but then again they could be the foundation of a good fish in the future depending on how you groom them thru selective breeding. what i want to stress is fishes from jeff rapp doesnt guarantee quality. most people who are new to cichilds will presume whatever fish that comes from jeff rapp is the best...NOT always the case.
for the green algae water...well guess i have to skip that, my CA tank runs on a calsium reactor with 8dkh water hardness, algae will not have a prayer. as we are on this subject...what happens when you put your fish in green water? is it true the colour would be more briliant or was the tone of green that made the fish look better? and what happens if you do a water change, will the colour fade than? of course you dont expect a person to have a green water tank in their living room? question again ...what was the reason or cause that made your fish look better in green water? have you did any research on this?..the reason why?
water turns green easily if its an outdoor tank, and for indoor tanks due to heavy lighting and the outburst of phosphate and silicate, mainly from uneaten food and fish pooh and a dirty filter system. its very unhealty for a fish to live in such a condition ..beware ...HOLE IN THE HEAD usually arrives thru such a condition. i have seen many farms kept cichlids in green watered ponds..but they didnt do that on purpose, sort like they have no choice as outdoor ponds always turn green under sunlight, no matter what they did to remedy it.
its true water with a deeper tone always brings out the best colour from a cichlid, but it doesnt have to be green. tannis water will bring the same result. having plenty of bogwood in your tank will turn the colour tannis but it does also bring the ph down, no worries of course, cichilds are hardy fishes especially those bred locally, they take any kind of water, low or high ph , take both.
on regaining fomer glory for a breeding fish it doesnt mean only from the colour's point. in general, the colour, the body, the eating mood, and if the fish not actually at its full size, will it continue to grow after breeding? many dont, ended up as stunted. i know many people would let their cichlids breed at the first opportunity, usually happens in a community tank, a pair just form up and starts to show breeding patten....even if the fishes are actually a few months old. if you allow this to happen, that pair will have a slim chance to grow to their potential size. the colour might look the same , but give it a few months , then you will see the difference.
another thing is why do breeders always sell their breeding pair cheap after a couple of spawn even though many of those fishes havent grown to their expected size? do they know something we dont?....ask yourself this?
the last pair of CA i had bred was a hartwegi and that was 3 years ago. i have stop breeding any since coming back to malaysia. when i was living in bangkok, i did alot of breeding since cichlids are cheap and readily avaiable..and it becomes easy if you buy more and let them pair off naturally. throwing a pair into a tank on their own doesnt always work, a badly beaten female is the usual result, even after spending weeks behind a seperator glass
Bocourti...i havent had the pleasure of keeping them before so no answers for you on how to breed them.
Regani....this is one CA cichlid that i refuse to keep , simply cos i hate them, they reminds me of a flowerhorn.
Argentea.... as long you have a matured male. young males are abit aggresive to the females and they make a poor parent ,its best to have 2 to 3 females to a matured male to form a pair. when you see one of the females helping the male in beating up the other females, then a pair is about to form. do not comitted the mistake of taking out the beaten female
or else the male will turn on and beat the remaining female, just let them sort thing out themselves, the beaten female must remain in the tank at all times even after spawning to keep the male interested in proctecting the eggs. Argenteas are very very aggresive.
Btw i saw a matured male in one of the FS in cheras, quite good and i dont think it will be expensive. well compared to the 6 inch one i got few years ago at Tbt4,200(rm400) when they are quite rare, argenteas are cheap now. aaah just hope the price of azuls would drop so i could get more ...and say "ah, azuls are cheap nowdays" in same manner of an argentea , at rm700 each, it will take years to drop to the desired rm50 unless someone breeds azuls non stop...CA cichlid style