An African 'Peacock' Cichlid
January 22, 2008
At the Monthly fish club meeting I met up with another member for a pre-arranged swap and brought home this beautiful breeding group of A. Maleri, Sunshine Peacocks. I have been wanting some peacocks, and these are about as beautiful as you could ask for. They are primarily yellow/gold with a blue on their faces and sides that glows when the light hits it. I had a 55g tank all set up and ready for them.
One of the females was holding when he went to catch them, and she dropped the undeveloped fry into the bag. I put them in a small container with an airstone and have been fussing over them everyday. As you can see by the size of the airstone, they are tiny, but for fry they are HUGE compared to the little fry I am used to, like betta and convicts.
January 30
They have absorbed the yolk sac, and today they are swimming and eating BBS. I'm giving them some dry shelled BS eggs as well, as my betta fry did well on those. I give them a pinch, and you can see what a mess it makes, so after letting them eat a few minutes I go back and siphon most of it out with a turkey baster and put fresh water from another african tank in there to refill.
April 10, 08
I got busy and haven't updated lately! The fry did fantastic! I fed them and cleaned their little box with an airline tube every day and changed a little water to keep it fresh. It was worth all the work. I had 13 survivors, I don't think I lost more than one or two. This was a big boost to my confidence after all the batches of severum fry I was unable to raise. Once these guys were free-swimming I moved them to a 15g tank of their own.
To my surprise the same female was holding again in March. I moved her into the tank with the 13 fry (now about 1/2 inch) and she hung out in a PVC tube in there. On 3.25.08 she released about 25 fry! I was so surprised to see all the tiny fry swimming peacefully with their big brothers! I dropped in some food for her and she came right out and gobbled it up - I'll bet she was hungry! After a couple days to recover I moved her back to the tank with the other adults.
Here is a picture taken yesterday: They are mostly just stripey, but they have a bit of blue in their fins, and their eyes are very reflective.
