electric yellow africans
- Thread starter AquariumLover
- Start date
They are called electric yellows, yellow labs, lemon drop, their species name is Labidochomis caeruleus .. they love rocks and caves..they are peaceful ..non aggressive and no territorial demands.. They should have ph 7.2-8.8 hard water.. temperture in the tank should be 75-79 degrees.. 3 females to one male is good ratio.. they are from lake malawi and they are gorgeous yellow with the right water conditions..they are mouth brooders are pretty easy to breed. They will hold fry in their mouth up to about 21 days and then spit the fry..they usually make excellent parents.They can get up to 8 inches but are slow growing and can breed at about 3 inches.. from my experience with them... they are beautiful sweet fish.
i have 3 that i just got. they are super active and seem really healthy! they are only about an inch-1 1/2 inches. but ya. i have had them for only a few hours and boy i love them! buy how do i know if i have a breeding pair or not? the action i got them from did not say if they were a breeding pair. and since they are so small they do not seem to have any 2 hanging near each other very much.
AquariumLover;1267650; said:
Your not going to know what the sex is for quite awhile; they are babies.. males and females do not hang out together at this age..they just all become friends at this stage.. they need to mature. You cannot have a breeding pair until the breed.. then they are a breeding pair..
Just take care of them and enjoy them and grow them up..you will know if they become a breeding pair later on in their life...Yellow labs usually don't become a permanent breeding pair. The male will lure the female to a breed spot, she will lay eggs, he will fertilize them, she will pick them up in her mouth and he will go off to spawn with another female. If you have a tank with one male and several females you can have more than one female carrying eggs or fry at once.
This is part of the reason mbuna tanks can become overrun with fry.
Even if your fish aren't breeding you can sometimes tell a male by his coloration. A dominant male will take on a lot more black coloration than females. His ventral fins will often be black, his head can turn black, and his dorsal fin and tail will usually be a lot more black.
Before they breed you will see the male going up to the females and kind of wiggling to try and lure her to a breeding spot. This behavior can't be mistaken for anything else, you will know it when you see it. It looks kind of silly actually.
Make sure to feed your females very well because they cannot eat while they're carrying eggs or fry in their mouth. This can last for several weeks.
Many people choose to strip the fry from the females mouth and raise them in a seperate tank so the female won't become weak.
Other people choose to leave the fry but move the female to a seperate tank until she releases the fry. Upon release of the fry they feed her well and move her back to the main tank.
I don't know much about stripping fry since I've never chosen to do so, so someone else would have to answer when it is ok to do so and how.
This is part of the reason mbuna tanks can become overrun with fry.
Even if your fish aren't breeding you can sometimes tell a male by his coloration. A dominant male will take on a lot more black coloration than females. His ventral fins will often be black, his head can turn black, and his dorsal fin and tail will usually be a lot more black.
Before they breed you will see the male going up to the females and kind of wiggling to try and lure her to a breeding spot. This behavior can't be mistaken for anything else, you will know it when you see it. It looks kind of silly actually.
Make sure to feed your females very well because they cannot eat while they're carrying eggs or fry in their mouth. This can last for several weeks.
Many people choose to strip the fry from the females mouth and raise them in a seperate tank so the female won't become weak.
Other people choose to leave the fry but move the female to a seperate tank until she releases the fry. Upon release of the fry they feed her well and move her back to the main tank.
I don't know much about stripping fry since I've never chosen to do so, so someone else would have to answer when it is ok to do so and how.
[QUOTE=ShadowBass;1269525;
very good advice..i never strip either..right now i have a female holding in a tank by herself..when she spits i take her out and feed her good.. then i do not breed her for a few months.. let her rest up and recuperate..
very good advice..i never strip either..right now i have a female holding in a tank by herself..when she spits i take her out and feed her good.. then i do not breed her for a few months.. let her rest up and recuperate..
well i'm not sure if this counts since my fish are so young, but i have one fish whose fins are all almost completely black and then the other 2 electric yellows have almost no black on them at all, but one has a fine strip of black that is really short on its top fin. so i am guessing that i have at least one male, and it looks like, from the coloration difference, one female. (can't tell what the third one is) and of course, this is only true if everything u told me about coloration applies at this young age.
AquariumLover;1274894; said:
your not going to know for certain until they are breeding age what sex they are.. some females have alot of black too..some males are all yellow.. but chances are good that it is a male since it is more often that the male has more black then the females.. but only time will tell.