My pair of Cichlasoma dimerus has spawned many times. It seems that each time they do, something is "changed up". Either they are extremely resourceful or they can't agree on how to go about it. One thing, they are incredible parents and will spawn and raise their young under the most adverse of conditions. They have spawned in a bare bottom tank with no structure whatsoever, with several Caquetaia kraussi (top predator) in their tank. Another time they divided up the spawn, the male and female each taking a portion, and guarded them separately in their own pits and areas, nowhere close to one another. The last couple of days, I've been noticing the male in a corner, looking rather nervous, and 'all lit up'. Thinking that he was just trying to attract the attention of his female, I thought nothing further of it. The female in the meantime was on the far side of the tank, behaving with total indifference to him. This is the same 90G where severums were 'dive bombing' the last spawn of wrigglers. Well today, the male was herding around a school of newly free swimming fry, and it looks like he's bound and determined to 'single parent' them. Here's a brief video of the highly committed 'dad' with his 'kids'.
[video=youtube_share;QETmi9NybJk]http://youtu.be/QETmi9NybJk[/video]
[video=youtube_share;QETmi9NybJk]http://youtu.be/QETmi9NybJk[/video]
