Two of the jags have had two successful spawns now. Each time resulting in hundreds of fry. The fry would disappear over the course of a week or so. Someone's eating them at night. But, successful spawning none the less.
There was speculation on another site that the enviornment is too stressful for successful breeding. The loisellis have tried a few times and failed. The jags have proved this theory incorrect.
Aggression is still a non issue. It doesn't exist. All fishes are packing on the pounds. All in all, it's going very well with so many big fishes in such a "small" tank (190g).
Here is the stock and their current sizes:
Parachromis managuense male (Jaguar), 'Tiny', about 14"+
Parachromis managuense male (Jaguar), 'Teeny', about 12" (1/2 of the breeding pair)
Parachromis managuense female (Jaguar), 'Shorty', about 6"+ (the other 1/2 of the breeding pair)
Parachromis loiselli male (Loiselli), 'Captain Awesome', about 12"+ (breeding)
Parachromis loiselli female (Loiselli), 'Lois', about 7" (breeding w/ Capt. Awesome)
Parachromis friedrichsthalii male (Freddy), 'Ghengis', about 11"
Amphilophus festae female (True Red Terror), 'Red', about 9"
Astronotus ocellatus (Albino Tiger Oscar), 'Albie', about 13" and THICK
Astronotus ocellatus (Tiger Oscar), 'Bobo', about 8"
Aequidens rivulatus male (False Green Terror), 'Stuart', about 6"+
Aequidens rivulatus male (False Green Terror), 'GT', about 7"+
Synodontis eupterus (Featherfin Catfish), 'Corky', about 8" and FAT
And a lone Convict male about 4"+ that has somehow survived from being fed to the big guys along with a hundred or so other Convict fry months ago.
All these fishes will be moving soon into this monstrosity that arrived today (not the Chevy, lol.). 358 US Gallons of Tenecor goodness (96" long x 36" wide x 24" tall)...
I've also been growing out this female Parachromis motaguense female (Red Tiger Mota) in my African tank. She's at about 5" now and ready to go in with the big guys.
I also picked up two tiny Slavinis from WalMart (of all places) that are in the African tank for now til they get some size on them. When they get 4" to 5" they'll go in with the big guys as well.
All in all, and at the end of the day, this tank has been a lot of hard work to make successful. But the reward of seeing so many big "aggressive" fishes cohabitate together peacefully is even greater. The successful breeding is icing on the cake. I caught a bunch of flak a while back on another cichlid-forum for this set up. But, I think I'm starting to change some minds in regards to successful predatory community tanks. A year ago, the predictions were this set up wouldn't last two weeks, lol. Obviously, there's a lot more than I can put into one post that makes this possible.
Thanks for looking and thanks for this great forum. It has been my true inspiration.
I'll get some more pics up soon. I've been pretty busy getting ready for this new tank and building a bike.
