Firemouth cichlid breeding

[Serketa]

Long time no seen.. How are you all?

Well.. I got few weeks ago firemouth cichlids, and already they are breeding. Eggs have been laid in a amphorapot, propably between saturday-sunday night. Female is quite busy and won't leave the amphora for a moment. There's no movement yet beside eggs.

How long should it take the fry to hatch? I thought there'd be a terrible fight but the parents are quite calm..

Any tips and advice is welcome.

[Serketa]

Well, the babies hatched last night, spotted them wiggling in amphoras deepest part. Parents are still calm, mom is taking really good care of them.. This is so exciting, my third fry of fish. (First acaras, then honey gouramis and now these, cool!)

[fishking]

Congrat bro. Any pics to see? Its been so difficult to find good quality firemouth cichlids here in Singapore. It was my first cichlid success more than 20yrs ago. I was still a newbie and was very frustrated with them when they started to dig a big hole in my sand infront of a flowerpot...hahaha...I kept pushing the sand back into place...till I saw eggs inside the flowerpot.

The fries will take about 5 days before they become free swimming.

[Serketa]

Yup, my fry has been swimming around their parents area for few days now and seem to be just fine. I live in Finland, and in my town there is only two stores for aquariumfish - and only the other is reliable when it comes to quality and health. Let's see if I succeed to add a photo here (I'm not kind of a pro in these things, and the photoquality may suck)..

[johannes]

Nice going with the Firemouth!
I am recently hooked to Central American Cichlids too... haha

by the way, what did you feed the fry after they are free swimming? The usual: baby brine shrimp/daphnia?

[Serketa]

I have Tetra's baby-sized food (dusty form) for them, but I've noticed the fry nibbling the driftwood and plants - propably they find some food their too.

[johannes]

Anyway, my Paratheraps fenestratus just spawned as well, the fries will be free-swimming today/tomorrow.
For me, i will probably go for daphnia for 2 weeks then crushed sinking pellets..
Will create a separate thread for that..

[stormhawk]

The fry will feed on microfauna living on the surfaces of driftwood, plants, algae and the gravel bed itself, but they will require BBS or daphnia for the first week or so, or in lieu of that, microworms/vinegar eels.