The Baby Yellow Labs have been transferred!

Two weeks ago we transferred our Yellow Lab fry to the 29-gallon tank. The transfer went off without a hitch. I took some pictures and a short video clip to post. I believe we have 25 to 30 in the tank.

The baby fish are doing beautifully. Guess what, Little Momma just added some more to the mix. They are in the breeder net still. I have not got a count on them yet. I will be adding them to the baby aquarium once they get a little bigger.

If these fish keep breeding like this, I do not know what we will do. The pet store I used to trade my fry to has closed. I need to check if Petsmart takes fish in trade. We are too far from any other stores we know take trades.

Trading baby fish in can be very helpful to maintaining your fish supplies. Yellow Labs can bring $3.00 per fish in store credit. The fish must be healthy and large enough for retail sale.

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Preparing Our Tank for the Fry: Limescale Removal

The fry is very shy and scatters to the bush every time I approach the tank

I have been busy getting a tank ready for all the Yellow Lab babies we now have. Not only did Little Momma have a fry of 10, Lilly our other Yellow Lab decided to give us a fry (we think there are 15-20 from her).

Having two sets of babies to house has us on our toes. Little Momma's fry is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in length. Lilly's fry is only a tad smaller. Soon they will all be too big for the breeder net and there is too many of them to add to the community tank.

The aquarium we will be using for the baby fish is 30-gallons. It has a Marineland hood. The Marineland hoods contain an Eclipse filtration system with a Bio-Wheel.

This tank has been very successful. We have housed a variety of fish in it over the years. The latest was a very aggressive Cichlid, Bullwinkle (Bully for short); we removed from our community tank. He needed to be separated because he murdered other fish in the community.

After living on his own for five years, Bully died. We were not sure what we would do with the empty tank so we disassembled it. We thought about setting up a saltwater tank but having so many baby Cichlids put that idea to rest.

One of the first issues we needed to deal with on the tank was a large amount of limescale. We live in an area of very hard water. Our fish love the water but the aquarium equipment does not.

Here you can see I did not get every bit of limescale off the hood

I prefer not to use any chemicals to clean our tanks. Some aquarists suggest cleaning with a bleach solution. I think this could be harmful to the fish. Anyway, I know from cleaning my own house, bleach does nothing to limescale.

What I have found to work pretty well is elbow grease, a razor blade, a stainless steel scrubber (not SOS pads, they have soap in them), and white vinegar for really stubborn limescale.

Most limescale will come off the waterline area if you let the tank sit dry for a time. I found I was able to remove this limescale with my aquarium brush. However, the limescale on the tank trim and hood was the absolute worst. I had to put a lot of effort into cleaning them.

For the hood, I let it dry out for a day. Then I took the hood apart. I tackled each piece with a combination of the razor blade and steel scrubber. I found some pieces of limescale would come off in large chunks if I tapped the surface of it lightly with a hammer. For the stuff that was really on there, I soaked it in a bit of vinegar.

For the aquarium trim, I scraped as much off as I could and left what would not come off alone. The hood covers this part so it will never be seen by anyone.

At this point, we are cycling the tank. It has been running for a week and we hope to put the babies in it next weekend.

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Tips for Breeding Cichlids

Breeding Cichlids has been quite a past time for us, so I thought I would pass on a few tips. We've had a lot of luck with Yellow Labs and Convicts over the years. We have also managed to get our Red Zebras to produce a fry or two. These are three of our favorites, however most cichlid breeds can be very prolific.

For us, success in breeding cichlids has come from a few basic factors we implement.

• We have plenty of hiding spots and decoration for cover
• We add protein to our carnivorous cichlid's diet (Krill)
  
• Use a separate tank for breeding pairs whenever possible
• We also keep the tank temperature on the high end of the spectrum

If you plan to breed Cichlids, or any fish, you should pick the best of the bunch to maintain breed quality. You should look for color, behavior, and health.

Try to observe a fish for a time before you purchase

Some cichlid breeds are quite expensive. Higher end pet shops will allow you to put a fish on hold for observation. Check the fish daily if you can.

• Note any color changes
• Look for health issues
  
• Ensure this fish is active but not overly aggressive

Breeding cichlids is a rewarding hobby for the home aquarist. But it is a hobby you should take seriously.

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We Have Baby Yellow Labs!

In the post Mouth Breeding Fish, I told you our Yellow Labs were having a baby fish fry. Well, the fry is here!



I moved little Momma into a larger breeder net. I felt the breeder box was too confining and keeping her from spitting out her babies. The trick worked. She started spitting the babies out on Sunday and finished Monday night. She has been separated from the community for a little over two weeks now.

From what I can count we have 7-8 babies in the fry. Some are very dark in color. I jokingly told my husband, she probably bred partially with Larry (our Dwarf Tanganyikan):

You can see here Larry is starting to lose his spots. This is the same dark spotted fish I have pictured in the sidebar of the blog. Soon all of the spots will be gone. This fish will be a dark blue fish with a yellowish white stripe.

In reality, I'm sure the Labidochromis Caeruleus did not cross breed with the Duboisi, but it would be interesting to see what would come of it, if they did.

When I saw little Momma eating food I fed to the newborns, I examined her mouth and jaws closely. She did not appear to have any more swelling so I decided it was time for her to leave the nest before she ate her babies.

Given that mouth breeding fish do not eat for the time they have babies in their mouth. I put her in a "recovery room" net. Cichlids are aggressive fish. I do not want her chased, nipped at, or stressed by other fish in the community. Once she gets her strength back I'll release her.

The baby Yellow Labs are really small and hard to capture on camera. If you look closely you can see a few yellow blobs at the bottom of this image and mixed in the breeding bush. Those blobs are the babies!


When they get a little bigger, I'll take more pictures. I will also be able to get a better head count.

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Mouth Breeding Fish

I have some news: Our mouth breeding fish are having babies. Yes, the Yellow Labs are breeding! Last weekend I was doing some tank maintenance and I noticed one of the labs mouth was swollen. Having bred cichlids before, I recognized the familiar puff in her cheeks.

What an exciting event!

Fish can be live bearers, mouth breeders, keep fertilized eggs in nests, or some just let the eggs go, get fertilized, and hope for the best.

• Live bearing fish are similar to humans in they give birth to live fish after a gestational period.
• Mouth breeders release their eggs for fertilization and the female retrieves them to keep in her mouth until they are ready for the world.
• Nest breeders build a nest to house their fertilized eggs in until they hatch.
• Scatterers go for broke and let the fertilized eggs fend for themselves.
  

I believe the easiest one to determine and breed is the mouth breeder. If you suspect you have a fish that's going to have babies, you should separate them as soon as possible. You do not want the fry (baby fish) to be born in the community as they will eminently become food.

Optimally, if you want to breed fish, you will have a separate aquarium. This is my preference. However, my breeder tank is housing a murderous fish that had to be removed from the community tank. So I have little momma separated in a breeder box.

Breeder boxes or nets will keep the female from being harassed or stressed by the other fish. It will protect the fry from harm once they are born. They also provide you with an easy means of catching them for transfer to a separate fish tank or to market.

Breeder Net

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