A. robertsoni Breeding Questions

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Dan F

Dan F

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2007
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Oregon
I have four WC robertsoni that I picked up about a year ago. They were living uneventfully in my 210 cichlid community up until a month ago. We had our floors refinished and so I had to move all my fish to several tanks (135, 75, 55) in the garage.

The robertsoni went into a 75 gallon tanks by themselves. By the next day I could see the conspecific aggression I had read about showing up - one of the two males was beat up pretty badly. I moved him out and everything settled down for a week. Then one day I checked on them to find the larger of the two females beaten almost to death (she has since made an almost miraculous recovery - tough fish!).

The remaining male and female appear to have paired off. They have been digging all sorts of pits and excavating out hollows under the driftwood in the tank. Both the female (about 3.5-4") and the male (about 6" and stout) look happy and healthy, not a torn fin on them.

I am hoping they will spawn and am wondering what may help. Are they substrate spawners or should I add some flat rocks? Should I remove the male or both parents if they do spawn? Incubation period?

I have a lot of experience keeping fish, but I am quite new to breeding CA cichlids, so ant advice and/or information regarding A. robertsoni would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for looking!
 
youcan add flat surfaces if you like but it seems they have already decided that they are going to breed soon. a nice partial water change also usually helps. say 30%
 
I haven't bred this species in particular, so I don't know if they have any specific spawning triggers, but I can tell you what generally works for CAs that I've had luck with.

Bump the heat up to 84ish. Perform big water changes (40-50%) every other day with slightly cooler water. Make sure you're feeding them plenty of food (not too much, but more than usual). I've had luck with playing with the flow in my tanks as well to induce spawning (add a powerhead, etc). You can give them some rocks or a nice ceramic flowerpot (CAs love those ugly things for some reason).
As far as parenting, the great thing about CAs is they do all the work! Just leave them in to figure it out. It might take them a couple times to get it right but eventually they should be spawning regularly. I would leave the fry with the parents until they get to about 1/2" or more.
 
Thanks for the replies. I will step up the water change routine and bump the temperature a couple degrees to start. I did add one good sized flat rock, but I suppose they could clear a spot on the bottom as well.
 
I don't think I've bred robertsoni...but I'd give them a few choices for a spawning site: A flat rock...a flowerpot or 3 (maybe a big one and a little one and a broken one)...

Feed them heavily for a week or two (I mix in some live worms a couple of times for week)...and do a big (75%), warm water change.

They'll figure it out...

Good luck!
Matt
 
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