Finally, JDs have laid Eggs again!

[Dragonis95]

wow, nice ones!

Is it me, or are their markings somehow less black and thinner? Looks very nice.
I had some lighter coloured ones (almost silver body) in a batch I sold last year. My male is more grey/reddish while female is tan coloured, might be that factor...

Good luck with your EBJDs, they seem to be quite a challenge to raise. My only try at one young EBJD ended deadly after one week.

And to add my feeding: I feed Sera O-Nip once every day, besides that the youngsters are fed by rests of the food of their parents (Söll organix and gammarus).
In the tank are some bacteria, algae and fungus populations that get nipped every now and then, so the babys can feed on what they like in the moment.

 

[AKBlueJacks]

They do look a bit different than the regular Jack Dempseys at this point. By three weeks I am able to tell the EBJDs from the regular ones. It is quite a task to sort through about 400 fry to Pull out about 100 that are a little different. Most days these guys get baby brine shrimp three times a day.

 

[Dragonis95]

hey,

I had the opportunity to get somme pretty sweet shots of my striped little cuties...
Here we go.

 

[Dragonis95]

hey ho,

since I will most likely be disqualified in the POTM contest because I hoped someone likes my picture, oh my god how bad (rolling eyes)...
I do my own permanent contest here and now.
Here are no rules, no needs, no other contestants. Who needs POTM if you can post your most beautiful pictures in a thread like this one ;-)
Just my own pictures of my own fish.

I have another one very sweet for you.
Take this, POTM!!! HA!!!

 

[Dragonis95]

The little ones are doing fine.
Now I started feeding crushed cichlid pellets to the babies.
They seem to like the food the parents get, so I want to adapt them to this food.
I hope they keep developing that way.

 

[Dragonis95]

hello again,

today I did a bigger water change, because the tank gets pretty dirty when feeding that much.
But: The little ones are still fine, they start getting the eye markings on the sides. If you look closely, you can see it on some of them. That tiny little glimmer inside the first stripe...
or maybe am I crazy?
As in every post, some pictures (aren´t that cuties*.*):

 

[Dragonis95]

those tiny little fish eat the whole day, no matter what I do. Everything gets eaten.
They don´t decrease much in number, so I still have very very many of them... 80? 100? Who knows... But the stronger ones are already bigger than some others, so I guess it will regulate itself by time.
Again, a nice macro shot of them nipping at something.

 

[Dragonis95]

Isn´t that sweet?
Mother and child?
Father and child?
The one big and strong, the other one tiny and fragile...

Today the little ones had some JBL NobillFluid Artemia. Sera O- Nip is about to be empty...
they are about 1cm long at the moment, some a little more, some a little less. A part of them is clearly smaller, while some rule the group and show a bigger size. Should I select them at this point?

Sorry for the reflections in the last picture, the sun decided to shine today...

 

[Dragonis95]

a few days passed, and...
still so many!!! still so cute!!! still eating like hell!!!
So here are some pics of those cuties again!


Group swimming at the wood...

on the right fish you see the tiny light blue markings starting to come through at the gill plate

and even the scales are already visible, so cute!
The dark line at the top of the dorsal fin will turn red later, when the baby fish become coloured like the adults.

 

[Dragonis95]

new things happening!

She seems to be preparing for another spawn, while the fry is now exactly four weeks old.
The behaviour she showed today was completely new to me, so took pictures for you.

First she swims towards the male, brightly coloured.

Then, she turns around...


...nips him in the side to get his attention, he colours up to show he sees her...

...then she waits for his response, but he seems slightly annoyed...

... she gets nothing but ignorance and turns away, he turns his colour back to normal...


Have you ever seen such a special behaviour?
Is that spawning behaviour? Just flirting? Provoking an interaction?
Because I have never seen these two behaving that way.
It is fascinating to see how diverse these fish are able to communicate and behave.