Do cichlid pairs leave each other and go on to mate with different mates or do pairs stay bonded for life? I'm mostly talking jaguar cichlids
Do cichlids leave each other in the wild?
- Thread starter jagsandpits
- Start date
Although I had a pair of managuense remain in a compatible situation for a number of years in a 150 gal, I believe this is an exception, and may be an aquarium induced lifestyle.
In nature, males hold territory during the breeding season, but as soon as the spawn is old enough to go out, the male will drive off any unreceptive female, in exchange for frisky one.
And in nature you often find loose aggregations of females, and subordinate males living in shoals, that only enter a dominant males territory when ready to mate.
like in the video of females and subordinate uropthalmus below.
Note some of the ones that have been torn up because they were either not ready to mate, or as in the case with males, not dominant enough to hold territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb3v0VJTg5c
In nature, males hold territory during the breeding season, but as soon as the spawn is old enough to go out, the male will drive off any unreceptive female, in exchange for frisky one.
And in nature you often find loose aggregations of females, and subordinate males living in shoals, that only enter a dominant males territory when ready to mate.
like in the video of females and subordinate uropthalmus below.
Note some of the ones that have been torn up because they were either not ready to mate, or as in the case with males, not dominant enough to hold territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb3v0VJTg5c