Any Advice On Breeding Kribensis?

[MrNiceGuy]

Ive never kept cichlids before so I want to give it a try. I have no large tank though, and not much space or money... but i do have lying around is a 10 gallon tank with a lid and light, a heater, a nano co2 system (designed for under 20 gallons) and a mature sponge filter (from another tank) so i've decided to get a pair of dwarf cichlids and breed them in my basement ( no space anywhere else). Surprisingly the only dwarf cichlids available at the many pet stores around me are kribensis'. So I got myself some small black gravel, and 2 pretty nice caves so far. I'll be adding a lot of live plants (in the substrate and floating) for coverage in the next couple of days because i know 10 gallons is far from ideal.

I've been reading up on kribensis breeding for about a week now, but is there any firsthand advice out there? i'd really appreciate it.





edit... i just realized kribensis are african cichlids, but being that they're dwarfs and much less aggressive than typical africans, i figure the american cichlid crowd might have more experience with them.

 

[nmonks]

By and large kribs breed themselves. The main thing is you start with good quality stock, ideally a male from one store and a female from another so you can avoid inbreeding if the ones in the shop are all siblings. The fry are large and consume algae and detritus in the aquarium as well as very finely powdered flake, so you don't have to worry about feeding them.

However, the key thing is to get the pH right. If the pH isn't "just right" you end up with fry that are almost all males or almost all females. That's obviously a bad thing, and it makes selling on your fry to pet stores difficult, since their customers usually want pairs. There's a little variation between Pelvicachromis species, but for the standard Pelvicachromis pulcher, pH 6.5-7 should get you a near-even ratio of males and females.

I haven't bred kribs for years, but I did breed Pelvicachromis taeniatus a couple of years ago, and have some personal observations up on my web site, here:

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/Projects/pelvicachromis.html

Cheers, Neale