Cockatoo Fry

[Waterloo Kid]

I added a male cockatoo to my tank containing two females about two weeks ago. The male promptly spawned with both females and died of no apparent reason within a couple of weeks. He left behind a couple of females, one with a dozen or so fry, the other with about 50 or so. The smaller spawn soon disappeared due to this being her first batch. The other female has had broods before and does a far better job of looking after them. 2 weeks on from first seeing the fry the second female still has approximately 7 fry left. All are growing nicely and are about 3-4mm long now. She is ferocious in defending the fry and has kept them hidden in the thicket of plants and java moss at one end of the tank. She is only about an inch and a half long but will easily chase off all-comers including tetra, fully grown angelfish, juvenile angelfish, cupid cichlids (which she REALLY goes for) and Keyholes. Quite an amazing mum! She only leaves them to snatch a bit of food at feeding time or to chase away a threat.

Has anyone else had a cockatoo successfully defend her young to maturity against such odds? I'm hoping mine will after getting them through the dangerous early days.

Fascinating fish.

WK

 

[a.d.wood]

Hi there WK,

No experience with Apisto cacatuoides in a community style tank, but my Apisto Morado breed in my show tank and succesfully defend small numbers of fry against 7 adult Cupid cichlids. As long as their are plenty of hiding holes at substrate level some of your fry should survive.

I now have at least 3 or 4 generations of fry/juveniles in the tank.

Andrew

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Interesting. My coockatoos seem to pay the cupids special attention. I'm guessing it's the similarity in shape to other dwarf cichlids. They seem to go out of their way to nip at the cupids whilst just chasing away the other fish. Mind you, the cupids also seem to go ut of their way to nip other cupids! Quarrelsome fellas they are!

WK

 

[Griz]

I've had a trio of cacatuoides (that breed regularly) for over a year in a community tank and have only had one fry survive. She is now an inch long and doing well. (See my profile for a list of their tankmates) Your odds are not great but it IS possible! Perhaps you could temporarily add some fake plants to help improve their chances. Good luck!

 

[Waterloo Kid]

There are loads of real plants in there. There are some parts of the tank where the vallis has grown so thick my Keyholes almost get stuck in there. With that and the nooks and crannies in the bogwood the fry have plenty of hiding places. Up to now the survival has been down to the mothers guarding prowess. It is quite obvious though that the fry have started to become aware of their surroundings and hide in the blink of an eye whenever danger threatens. Hopefully this and the mothers continued protection will help them through. I still have seven fry at last count. No fatalities in a week!

WK

 

[Seb R]

Hope they survive Good luck! My cousin had some kribs with silver dollars and other large and hugnry fish, now he has got a couple of 1 inch tough little kribs that are now holding thier own against gigantic dollars

 

[BigC]

Why are you not trying to carefully slip some sort of perspex divider into your tank to ensure that some of the fry will survive. If that female weakens at all then the fry ar gonners anyway.

 

[Waterloo Kid]

There's no way I'm going to be able to put a divider into the tank. It's planted and heavily aquascaped. I'm not out to raise fry so they have to take their chances. If I had my hospital tank (currently a temporary home to goldfish at a friend's house) I would have transfered them. I can't see Mum weakening. She eats every day, I see to that! Also, most of the time she has little work to do. The tank is big and lightly stocked so apart from at feeding time when all the fish go mental she has a large chunk of tank to herself. The only real risk to the fry at the moment is if she looses interest.

WK

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Well, we are well into the new year now and there are 3 5mm long fry remaining. The mother has started to loose interest in the fry slightly and will go foraging for minutes at a time without the young. The young themselves are now obviously small fish rather than fry even though they are still very small. They seem to be big enough to avoid the attention of the tetras now but the Keyhole has taken to trying to eat them. he doesn't really have a hope unless the fry are caught off guard. They tend to keep to the vallis jungle at the back of the tank and the keyhole just can't get though the dense folliage. A number of times I've seen the Keyhole jammed in the vallis a few times looking rather cheesed off. The angels and cupids haven't taken any notice of the fry at all as far as I can tell.
The fry are feeding on newly hatched brine shrimp and foraging the mulm theat I have let build up on the bottom of the tank. They seem to find plenty of microscopic food in the detritus and in the Java Moss. Quite a natural diet really.
I'm impressed with the mother's skill at raising the fry. I'm sure that if there had been a male in the tank she'd have left the fry before now and bred again. She is gradually leaving them to their own devices as they are now fully aware of danger and can vanish in a split second if required, usually under a piece of wood or into a plant thicket. With their camoflage they are very difficlut to spot until they move. I'll try to get some pictures of them but my camera isn't that good at close up work.

WK

 

[Seb R]

Well done for getting this far, good luck and hope they all become adults

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Nothing to do with me really, it's all down to the mum.
All I did was provide some food every now and again and not clean the tank much at all in the last 6 weeks.

WK

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Well, they're now going it alone. mum has given up looking after them and they have dispersed through the tank making them very difficult to find. I did see one of them yesterday. It's looking like a miniture version of it's mum now, except it's still a mottled colour rather than yellow. It has the black lateral stripe and swims happily with the tetras. Well, when I say happily I mean it swims in the open so long as none of the other fish get too close. then it's straight back into its hidding place which I've found is under an overhang od a bit of bogwood, hidden by Java moss. A perfect fry hideout! I think the other two are around still, it's very hard to say, I have lost many fish in the tank only for them to reappear months later. I know I have shrimp in the tank as I keep seeing their shed shells but I haven't actually seen them for over a year! Finding a fry the size of a piece of gravel isn't going to be easy!

WK