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Am I about to get babies?(Blue Acara breeding behavior)

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Riuqlav

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Hi everyone, I adopted these two 10 cm (4"), and 8 cm(3") Electric Blue Acaras from a guy online that said:
"-They are 1 year and something".

I want to know if I really got a male and a female, and if they are about to breed I'd love to have some babies;

I got the two that were together apparently protecting a corner of their old tank, imagining that could improve my chances of a pair.

They were hurt on the head and with the fins damaged and living with 5 more in a much smaller tank.

Now I have them for 2 weeks and they are healing and flagging, vibrating to each other also kissing and rubbing on the rocks(mostly the bigger one), the smaller has this white tube outside, and both are constantly pulling my plants up...

I recorded a little of the behaviour.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qsj3WAtMBN6JLzG7A

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9q9wTn8gbz725DqT7


Sorry for the quality of the videos, but they come to the front glass and stop doing it if I approach the tank too close.


Thank you in advance!
 
I wouldn't be surprised if you have eggs on the back of that rock the male was swimming over. It looked like he was fertilising eggs.

The one with the ovipositor (white thing near her bum) looks like a female, the one that was hugging the rock and waving its fins about looks like a male. Females normally have shorter more rounded dorsal (top) and anal (bottom) fins. the males usually have longer more pointed dorsal and anal fins.

The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish. It includes a section on hatching brineshrimp eggs. Baby cichlids can normally take newly hatched brineshrimp and microworms as their first food.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/back-to-basics-when-breeding-fish.448304/
 
I wouldn't be surprised if you have eggs on the back of that rock the male was swimming over. It looked like he was fertilizing eggs.

The one with the ovipositor (white thing near her bum) looks like a female, the one that was hugging the rock and waving its fins about looks like a male. Females normally have shorter more rounded dorsal (top) and anal (bottom) fins. the males usually have longer more pointed dorsal and anal fins.

The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish. It includes a section on hatching brineshrimp eggs. Baby cichlids can normally take newly hatched brineshrimp and microworms as their first food.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/back-to-basics-when-breeding-fish.448304/

Thanks a lot!

It's confirmed! I went out when I am back I see the male keeping all the barbs in the corner and the female waving the rock full of eggs.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fUvfdvJ9T3daNkqZ9

Now I have to figure out how to raise them...

Because I am already on making DIY protein food, a emergency tank and now with babies, if I build a brine shrimp hatchery my wife is gonna kill me lol

Is that another kind of food that I can give them?
 
Is what another kind of food (baby brineshrimp)?

A brineshrimp hatchery can be made from a 2 litre plastic drink bottle or any plastic container with a similar shape. Just cut the top off the bottle and throw it away. Half fill the bottle with salt water and put an airstone in it. Add a small amount (1/4 level teaspoon) of dry brineshrimp eggs and leave it to bubble away for a couple of days. If the water is warm the eggs hatch after about 24 hours and the orange larvae (nauplii) can be sucked out with an eye dropper and squirted into the tank near the babies.

Use a plastic plant sprayer with freshwater in, to wash any eggs off the side. More detailed info is in the link above.

-------------------------
Just feed the babies and let the parents look after them. You don't need to do anything special except make sure the babies don't get sucked up by the filter.
 
It's wierd they were fine, now they are fighting like crazy, they even leave the eggs alone to attack each other.

I don't know what to do.
 
It's wierd they were fine, now they are fighting like crazy, they even leave the eggs alone to attack each other.

I don't know what to do.
You can remove the female or setup a tank divider they can fight for hours if you don't separate them

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6010 using Tapatalk
 
They are arguing over who is going to look after the eggs. The female should and the male should guard the area. However, when cichlids breed for the first few times, they often have to work out what they are meant to do, and it can take 4 or 5 batches of eggs before they work out their roles.

These are fish that have probably been artificially reared by people and have no experience with parental care. Leave them to work it out but monitor them for injuries. If one gets injured, then separate them.

Wild caught cichlids usually make better parents because they were reared by their parents, not a fish farmer who simply took the rock with eggs out and grew them up in a bare bottom glass tank.
 
They are arguing over who is going to look after the eggs. The female should and the male should guard the area. However, when cichlids breed for the first few times, they often have to work out what they are meant to do, and it can take 4 or 5 batches of eggs before they work out their roles.

These are fish that have probably been artificially reared by people and have no experience with parental care. Leave them to work it out but monitor them for injuries. If one gets injured, then separate them.

Wild caught cichlids usually make better parents because they were reared by their parents, not a fish farmer who simply took the rock with eggs out and grew them up in a bare bottom glass tank.


Thanks a lot for the help!
I gonna read that, I put a plastic cover between the male and female while I don't setup the new tank, they are still staring each other down but at least is through the plastic and nothing can come to eat the eggs while they do it.

Here's the divisor: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kFHRGo94pMfp19mH7

But I don't know, do you think I should let the female with the eggs?
 
the female should be guarding the eggs, however if the male is looking after them, then let him do it.
 
Alright just did it! I come back with news
Thank you.
 
Update on the EBA!

*Update*
So each time I looked the rock there were less, and less eggs, also I saw the female grabbing mouths full of eggs once in a while, I just accepted I did lost the batch

Then today back from work, I saw the rock almost empty the tank oddly re-escaped and in a hole, a bunch of tiny wigglers!

The wigglers are hard to see but here's a video of her dropping the eggs on the hole!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/L1ttvVbz4aVfUsr77


Also I got a new test kit today, JBL 6 in 1, and according to it my water is:
100 NO³, 8 of pH, 21ppm of hardness, and around 15 to 20 KH

Since the NO³ from my tap came out between 25-50 I presume the test might be over reacting a bit

I just moved from Brazil to France so I don't know if the new test is crazy, or the water in Paris is that absurd and the fish can stand because are locally breed...What do you guys think?
 
100ppm of nitrate will cause the fry to suffer and probably be deformed.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the level is as low as the tap water. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.
 
Update on babies EBA

I don't know if they are already considered "free swimming" but the female does have to deal with some escapees going out of the nest LOL. (see on video)

Also I noticed she sifting food on top of them, which made them move way more active, couldn't see if they are eating tho....

The frozen food I make is:
Fish filet, mushed peas and broccoli, egg yolks, agar and garlic, so is really messy with really tiny particles.

Today I'm buying a 30 litres (8g) cube, I know it's not a good option for lack of bottom surface area, but is what I can do for now.

My two questions are:
*Does somebody know if she's feeding them or if will they eat that? (It sinks btw)

*When is it good for me to move them to the cube?
Here's a video of the stage they are:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XHqXqV962KJ2emCS6
 
Don't feed the babies on garlic, agar, broccoli or peas. Just use boiled egg yolk or newly hatched brineshrimp for the first couple of weeks. You can buy dry brineshrimp eggs from pet shops or online and hatch them in salt water. Then use an eye dropper to separate the baby shrimp from the eggs and feed the shrimp to the baby fish.

The following is from my thread on culturing live foods for baby fish, found at the following link. It also has info on hatching brineshrimp eggs.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/back-to-basics-when-breeding-fish.448304/

EMERGENCY FRY FOOD
Some fry like labyrinth fry (Bettas & Gouramis) and Iriatherina werneri are very small when they first hatch and need green water or infusoria. If you can't get these you can hard boil an egg. Remove the shell and white part. Push the yellow yolk through a handkerchief into a small container of dechlorinated water. Put the lid on the container and shake it up, then use an eye dropper to suck some of the egg yolk solution out and put it in the tank with the babies. Do this 3-5 times per day for the first 2 weeks then start adding newly hatched brineshrimp.

Boil another egg each day and make a new solution each day. Keep the solution in the fridge when not using it. Take the solution out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature for 10 minutes or so before using it in the fry tank.

Do regular partial water changes on the fry tank or have a small air operated sponge filter in it to keep the water clean. The egg yolk can cause ammonia levels to go up and without water changes or a filter the fry will die from polluted water.

--------------------------
The babies are free swimming when they get up off the bottom and swim about.

Don't move the babies until they are 1/2 an inch or more long. By then they will be swimming all over the tank and when the parents no longer show any brood care (guard the babies), then move the babies out.

Right now the mother is doing a great job and taking good care of them so leave her alone and let her do her job.

If you have another established filter, you could move the tiger barbs into the smaller tank for the time being but they would have to be put back in the bigger tank after. Or wait a couple of weeks and then remove the partition and let the tiger barbs eat some of the babies.
 
Today I made a tiny bundle of boiled egg yolk on a nylon sock and dump next to their nest with a floss line

Every time she bites the thing it releases a little cloud of particles , I didn't have time to observe if the babies are eating it, but they are definitely trying to get some

So I didn't fed her so she can nib on that and releases some for the babies

Do you think they can survive on the eggs?
Just until they can get that normal frozen fish and veggies pure, or mushed flakes...

I set up a 5 gallon ('till I find a bigger one, but not that big) with water from the tank and a sponge filter that was already running!

I watched this video online with hundreds of them at +100 days still with the parents in the same tank.

I wonder if I divide them in two groups:
*With mother in the main tank with regular maintenance.
*Without mother in the 5 gallon changing water everyday.

What do you guys think?
 

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