Saturday 14 May 2011

Leptosoma Cyprichromis Kigoma - Breeding

I had got a group of 10 Cyprichormis Leptosoma "Kigoma" from Bangkok in September 2010.   They were about 2" in size. Initially, I had put them together with a group of Black Calvus in a 5' tank.    Once they grew to about 3.5" and started showing colours, I moved them to a 6' tank.    They were 2M and 8F in the group.   I sensed that they were adults now and could start breeding anytime now.  I fed them with NLS Thera A (1mm) as staple food and occasionally gave them frozen blood worms and artemia.  







In April 2011, I noticed that they were spawning with 2 of the females holding eggs.    After 3 weeks, I could notice the females were barely able to hold the frys in the mouth and one could see the eyes of the frys through their lower part of their mouth(translucent portion).



On 14th May, I was surprised to see 13 healthy 6-7mm frys swimming in my tank.     I can't imagine how these tiny mouths can hold 6-10 frys of that size in their mouth.   Amazing!

They are now taking Hikari first bytes as well as crushed Hikari pellets.

The frys are doing pretty good and they are about 1 week old.   The good thing about the Cyprichromis are that they don't seem to bother the frys even though they may not protect them.   So as long as it is single species tank, the frys are safe.

Thanks to Hayath, have been able to get some close up shots of the frys


Here are some additional pictures of the colony taken by Hayath





Following links are very useful for differentiating various Cyprichromis species:

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kennel/inutarou/cypriver/cypriver.htm
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kennel/inutarou/02/cyprichromisjumbo01.htm
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kennel/inutarou/03/cyprichromisspjumbo02.htm
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kennel/inutarou/04/cyprichromisspjumbo03.htm

The first link confirms that the species that I have is Cyprichormis Leptosoma "Kigoma" !




6 comments:

  1. How did you get them from Bangkok?
    Bappa

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very nice report n pics Jai! Almost reminds me of the african cichlids book

    Visit overdue ofcourse.

    Looking forward for many more :)

    Cheers,
    Hayath

    ReplyDelete
  3. cool one... please share some closeup of tiny frys.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I need to improve my photography skills to be able to get a picture of the frys....will try in any case :)

    Thanks Hayath and Ash.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great looking fish, nice pics, beautifully written blog, keep the good work going, we need men like u man!!

    ReplyDelete