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So, I have a 20 gal. Tanganyikan tank with Neolamprologous caudopunctatus. There are 8 adults, and definitely 3 pairs, though one of them may be a trio. Anyway, there are three breeding sites: one smack in the center of the tank, and one all the way to the left, and one all the way to the right. Since Caudopunks are cave-dwellers in the wild, I've provided them all kinds of rockwork to hide in, and the adults hang out in the rocks, but they use the shells to spawn.
Anyway, I had a batch of fry in the center shell adn they were doing okay. This is the spot governed by what might be the trio. They are the most successful parents, with the most surviving fry in the growout tank. About two weeks later, both of the side spawning sites erupted in fry. The ones on the right side of the tank rarely produce fry, but the adults seem to be pretty good parents with a few fry surviving in the growout tank. The ones on the left side of the tank are very very prolific, producing huge clouds of fry every 6-8 weeks. However, none of these fry have ever survivied to be put into the growout tank. I usually wait 6 weeks before moving fry, or until they have started to show color and are large enough to look like actual fish rather than swimming grains of rice with eyes. The differences in bahaviors from one spawning site to another is very interesting. The center parents are very protective, but I see the fry regularly and they come out for food (I'm using Hikari's First Bites because I am far too lazy to deal with brine shrimp) and grow fairly quickly and healthy. The entire spawn does not survive, but I consider it a good spawn if I wind up with 15-20 fish in the growout tank. The parents on the right side of the tank seem very over-protective, always chasing the fry back into the shells, and I think that maybe the reason I get so few surviving fry from these batches is because the parents prevent the fry from eating enough because they are chased into the shells constantly. Then there are the parents on the left side... Their fry are almost always out of the shells, swimming all over their litle corner of the tank, 50 or more little fry swimming as high as the mid-regions of their corner, and these parents don't do a lot to chase them back into shells, though they will occasionally show a bit of parenting and scoot them all down toward the shells, if not into them, and they will chase other adults away from their corner a bit. And yet, when they fry are about two or three weeks old, they all manage to disappear. I honestly don't know what happens, if the parents eat them, or if they're chased out of the home corner for the other adults to eat, or what happens.

Since all of these fry have emerges around the same time, I will be very interested to see what happens with the fry and how many survive to be moved to the growout tank. Does anyone else notice these kind or different parenting behaviors in shellie or other cichlid tanks?

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Hello Illustrae
Unfortunately I cannot add any value to the disucssion because I am only ju-ust setting up my first shellie tank. Since shellie discuissions are less frequent around here I didn't want this thread to go by without joining in. Limited as my experience is I hope to make up with enthusiasm...

Three colonies in a 20g? I had no idea a tank that size coult host three colonies.

I was tossing up whether to have punks (ie caudopunctatus]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/188.htm[/link]) or [link=multisfor my first shellie tank and have gone with multis. Well, 'gone with' in so far as set up for.... not stocked yet. Just added the heater recently.

Will keep testing the pH and add the stock in a pay or two. (yes, that says pay not day.... this time of year has a lot of gifts to buy among my friends and family... so my wishies will have to wait a bit)




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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

I have to admit, that I freak out a little when I consider that I technically have about 100 fish in that regular 20 gallon tank... I'm going to be moving the three definite pairs/trio to a 30 gal. long soon, so hopefully that will give them more room and I won't have to keep a growout tank anymore. Like Multies, Caudopunks will continue to care for younger generations, so it will be interesting to see how it works out.

I guess the point of this post is just to say how facinating these little fish are, that they have individual distinct personalities and habits.

Good luck with your multis!

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Thanks... and you too with your generations going strong

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~