Never bred dovii before. Just wondering if there’s a way to see if they’re fertile? If not would they already be white? They were layed at some point in the last 20 hours
Are these eggs fertile?
- Thread starter JDCichlid
- Start date
Tanisha in color I would guess yes. Normally unfertilized eggs would be almost glowing white.
Sometimes it takes a few days to white over, but for now I’d guess you’re good!
Awesome thanks guys! Cold water change yesterday did the trick.
Well I bought this group in the hopes of getting a pair about a month ago. I guess the next stage is to see if they hatch and at that point would it be the appropriate time to remove all the dovii from the tank?
Well I bought this group in the hopes of getting a pair about a month ago. I guess the next stage is to see if they hatch and at that point would it be the appropriate time to remove all the dovii from the tank?
The other dovii* (I will keep the pair and wrigglers in the tank)
Depending on if you want to try and raise the fry. It may be a good idea tho to keep the others in the tank as targets of aggression for the new pairing. Usually the first few batches don't pan out. It takes a couple spawns for new parents to get things right. So having the extras in still for the first few batches will give them something besides each other to dump the built up aggression.
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. There’s 2 males and 7 females in the tank. It appears one male has actually spawned with 2 different females today. I originally had 5 males, but removed 3 of them 1-2 weeks ago.
I too would keep the others in there unless everyone starts getting shredded apart if/when the eggs hatch. If you remove the others I would try to have a small group of fast moving fish (many use silver dollars) for the Dovii to focus their aggression on if you see mom and dad getting rough with each other. Your situation is super unique to me in that you have one male spawn with two females in the same tank. If both clutches of eggs hatch you are going to have aggressive behavior like planet earth has never seen…lol. I have bred tons of CA cichlids but never Dovii. So someone else may tell you this type of thing happens and is fine. In my mind I can’t imagine Dovii making good a co-parenting situation. Others should have more insight.
A number of years ago while growing them out I had one male (roughly 11" or so) spawn with two females (about 6") at the same time and completely ignore the third remaining female. Both spawns where laid under two feet apart in the aquarium and without too much anthropomorphism there was an uneasy understanding between the two females. Fry were allowed to gather at whichever site they chose (often one female would have almost all of them and later in the day the clutches would be heavier congregated with the second female) neither female would actually cause harm to the other while this was happening just a lot of posturing and threat displays if one ventured a little too close to the "wrong" side of the stump but no physical contact. Before and after the spawning the "agreement" was off and each kept to their respective ends of the aquarium for the most part and when this failed to be the case the usual liplocking ensued. I chose to remove the fry at the 7-8 week mark as with the sheer number they were beginning to make the parents look tattered.
Wow that actually blows my mind. I’d love to see that one day. One of the clutches of eggs is gone so i probably won’t get to experience it unfortunately. It was the first spawn so maybe the female ate them? Hopefully some will hatch if not hopefully they’ll figure it out next time!