Laetacara Araguaiae "Buckelkopf" spawning

[Aquanoob]

Bought 3 Laetacara Araguaiae "Buckelkopf" from Jit Sin on Saturday afternoon and they were in my tank on Saturday night. Tonight came back home and realised that 2 of them have form a pair and have spawned. They have broken my German Ram's 4 days spawning record by half. They are only in the tank for about 2 days. I have taken some photo of the female and the egg. I can't get a clear shot at the male as it has been chase away by the female guarding the egg by herself.

The Eggs


Mother and eggs





Now we see why it is also call the Humphead Smiling Acara

[mer2623]

Congrats bro, hopefully mine form a pairs too..

[xXXXx13]

Nice all the best buddy

[Aquanoob]

2nd Night update:
The female allow the male to guard the egg together now that the male had killed another smaller Araguaiae. Never know that they can be so aggressive.
The male is darker and slightly bigger than the female.

[Aquanoob]

Very interestingly, the Araguaiae's spawning behaviours is just like the German Ram. This morning, I saw that the egg on the dwift wood is gone and I thought the parent had eaten the egg. Then I saw that the parent are on top of a depression of the substrate. And upon staring hard at the depression, I saw tiny little wriggling movement. Exactly the same with the ram, the fry are now in a wriggler stage, and the parent are guarding them very well.
I can't take any pictures at the wrigglers and I guess I can only update when they are free swimming.

[doppelbanddwarf]

Nice fishes and photos. Any chance of a full tank shot?

[Aquanoob]

Chong yu, thanks, I will do it when the fry are in a free swimming stage. The tank is virtually belong to the Araguaiae now that I have net out the guppies. Only left 2 small ember tetra inside the tank which is really too fast for me to catch, and I don't want to disturb the Araguaiae. Anyway, the tetra are at one corner and don't dare to go near the "giants".

[Jitticus]

Congrats, Nick.

[Aquanoob]

I have not updated the progress of the Araguaiae fry as I can't take clear picture of them but they are doing well until this morning.... I noticed that the number of the fry decreased significantly so I thought they are hiding somewhere in the plant or the driftwood, that is when I noticed that the female has spawned again and the couple are once again guarding the egg. I witnessed the male eating up the fry that he can find with my own eye, so I try my best to net out any surviving fry hiding but I can only saved 6 of them at this moment. There maybe more hiding somewhere and I will try to net them when I see where they are. Actually, I am quite surprised that the female had spawned again when there are fry in the tank. I thought they will at least raise the fry to "teenage" before spawning again. Very soon, I will have 2 batch of fry and I will net out the 2nd batch when they are about a week old. Pity that I have lost quite many F1 in a day, there were about 30-40 fry in my last count, but now....

[HappyGuppies]

Haha, congrats bro! Happy to read this spawning thread after a long hiatus.. How are the fries' growing rate?

[thomashl_99]

Congrats bro...any update on the fry?

[Aquanoob]

Thank you all. I left 10 F1 fry now together with 2 guppy fry in a holding tank. And I got many F1 2nd batch of about 1 week old in the 2ft tank with their parent now. I have no spare tank left, so I have to leave them inside for now. An interesting thing happened as I saw the female had once again lay egg on the driftwood again and there are still fry in the tank. I feed the parent with normal cichlid pellet, but they will also eat the microworm which I use to feed the fry. I don't know whether this is the reason why she got too much protein in her.

[xXXXx13]

Wow bro, congrats! Now your tank can't seems to stop spawning

Why don't you move the F1 2nd batch to your holding tank together with your other fries?

What is F1 you are referring here? Apologies for my 'noobness'.

[Aquanoob]

Steven, I also just knew what is F1 weeks ago. F1 is suppose to be the first generation from the WC parent. I thought the 2nd batch is call the F2 until Jit Sin corrected me as it is call F1 2nd batch, then F1 3rd batch and so on.... The reason why I can't mix the F1 and the 2nd batch together is because of the size. The F1 is about 10 times of the 2nd batch and I think they will gladly eat up the 2nd batch fry now. Will try to move them to a guppy tank.

[xXXXx13]

Nic, so am I right to say the first generation from the F1 first generation is called F2? Paisey, what is WC parent? The only WC I know is Water Change

Better to segregate the fries from the parents in case they become snacks to them again.

[Aquanoob]

WC is Wild Caught. I bought the WC Araguaiae from Jit Sin I think last month. Yes, the first generation from the F1 first generation is called F2.

[xXXXx13]

Oh I see. Thank you for the clarification. Learnt something new