Hello All,
A few weeks ago i went to my lfs and bought 4 juvenile kribs. Two of the kribs have now paired off and killed one of the other ones. So I have 3 kribs left now, and as i said, 2 have paired off. I dont have any rocks in my tank however i do have some pieces of bogwood and lots of plants, the tank looks really nice. The water parameters in my tank are ph 6.8, kh 2, gh 3-4, ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm.
The problem im having is that the kribs havent laid eggs yet! The male and female that have paired off have been doing the shaking about in front of each other, do you think that the problem may be that they dont have a suitable breeding site? last night i raised the temp a couple of degrees and done a small water change. Hopefully this will spur them into action. Other fish i have in the tank are 10 neons and 5 white cloud mounitain minnows, so they are obviously not scared of them! I dont really want to put a terracotta plantpot in the tank as i think it would make my tank look unnatural. Any ideas on how to get them started, do you think i just need to wait longer as the kribs have never breed before?
Additionally, with the water parameters above do you think that the water would be suitable for some more adventurous species of dwarf cichlids such as caucatoides or borelli's or perhaps some agazzisi's??? ive had these fish in the past with not much success in a different tank, however, i think i located the problem. evaporation! I had a 4 ft tank with a wooden hood, however, there was a large space between the surface of the water and the hood, i had no condensation cover. I used to lose as much as 2 inches of water a week, i used to then just top up the water with fresh tap water - this was obviously increasing my waters hardness. I now have a condensation cover and seem to have my gh kh and ph under control and it seems to be holding at the previously stated levels.
Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Shuggie.
p.s. Ill try to get some pics of my tank online soon.........and hopefully a diary of my kribs when they start breeding

Just do regular water changes and feed them a good diet, it's all they need. Sometimes warming up the temperature a bit, to about 80, will help. The truth is you bought juveniles and have only had them for a bit, so the biggest problem is most likely patience on your part. Give them time and they'll go when they're ready. Unless it's a big tank the neons will probably run into trouble once they do.