Old vs. Young Cichlid Breeding Discussion Thread

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balton777

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Jan 8, 2007
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(Mods: Please don't move this thread to the breeding section. Although it's regarding breeding, it's strictly CA/SA cichlid related. Thank you. :))
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As many of you may know, I have a pair of Festae. I didn't pair them up until they were both adults. They bred a few times when I first put them together but it's gotten more infrequent as time moved on. The male is now 13"+ and the female is 10.5-11". At this size, they only try about every six months or longer and always eat the eggs.

When I had a young pair of Festae, they bred non-stop without me having to do anything special. They just tore it up having fry on top of fry. I don't have experience breeding larger, older cichlids. Does they're breeding frequency decline as they mature?
Has anyone had luck breeding full grown cichlids? Do yours breed very often? What's your secret? Water softness? Hardness? Ph? Other?
 
Adults cichlids definately breed less often. A few varieties continue to spawn pretty often but most slow down as they mature. If you raise a pair from young fry you typically see a lot of spawning the first 1.5 years that they are paired then they slow down to maybe 3-4 times a year. Once they hit 3+ years of age 1-2 times a year is more common. Spawns tend to be much less frequent with large older fish. But they also are usually a lot larger spawns with higher success rate. I find that my older fish tend to be a lot more seasonal in the spawning as well. When spring hits and storm fronts come through it always triggers a lot of my older pairs to spawn. Then usually they spawn again sometime in late summer to early fall. They might throw another random spawn in some point in the year but that is not reall common.

That's just my experience. If you want to have luck with the festae I would remove all tankmates if you have any. They are much less likely to eat the eggs if they have the tank to themselves.
 
Thanks for the input. I had an idea it was because they're older...like with how even humans lose their sex drive as they mature. Removing the tankmates is no problem, there's only six SD's with them as it is. Every week when I change the water, they brighten up and dance a little after the refill, but no results.

Any other ideas? What about water buffering? Raise or lower ph? It's usually at 7.3-7.5.

I guess it's not a big deal if they don't, but I get a lot of PM's asking for fry so it would be nice to help some fellow Mfk'ers.
 
Have you tried raising the temperature, simulating rains and feeding high protein live food to condition em? if jgentry says his old pairs always start breeding with the change of the seasons that might very well work.
 
cacichlids said:
Have you tried raising the temperature, simulating rains and feeding high protein live food to condition em? if jgentry says his old pairs always start breeding with the change of the seasons that might very well work.
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Yeah, that's actaully when they start getting in the mood. My normal temp is 81-82F. When I water change it drops to about 77-78F and they start shimmying all around and coloring up...just no eggs. If they are laying them, it's at night and they're gone by morning lol.

RE: High Protein Foods. Do you mean live or what would you recommend?
 
Live crayfish, shrimp, prawn, worms and fresh fish meat... in the wild when the breeding season comes there's an abundance of live food and an increase in their metabolism brought by the higher temps, so they eat a lot more to gather energy for breeding. Or at least that's the way I understand it. In fact I was reading about the only time that someone managed to breed Clown Loaches in captivity and the first sign was that they wouldn't take anything but live foods... they started eating their tankmates or something lmao.

Why don't you try raising the temp to 84 F and conditioning with live food, leave it for a week with no change and then do 10% daily water changes for a few days with colder water and see if that triggers breeding.
 
I've also read about using a dither or "common enemy" to reinforce the bond between a pair of cichlids... not sure what is the exact reasoning behind that but the only time I tried it, it seemed to work. My Blue Acaras had been "flirting" for about a month but they just wouldn't spawn... then I added a small GT of around the same size and they went crazy... a little cruel but they ended up killing the GT and breeding the next day.
 
I'm going to try the advice from post #6. I already feed live nightcrawlers once a week but will up the live foods. Going to up the temp and get some crawfish and small live shrimp....maybe some crickets too? Wish me luck. Already tried the other one (post #7) when they were in the community tank.

All ideas and suggestions are appreciated.
 
I wouldn't use "wild" crickets, I have found that they carry a lot of parasites, I have found all sorts of weird stuff swimming in my tanks after feeding circkets, google "horse hair worm" for an example. As far as the breeding in older fish, they certainly do slow down as they age, it takes an incredible amount of energy for them to spawn and raise fry.
 
BigPic said:
I wouldn't use "wild" crickets, I have found that they carry a lot of parasites, I have found all sorts of weird stuff swimming in my tanks after feeding circkets, google "horse hair worm" for an example. As far as the breeding in older fish, they certainly do slow down as they age, it takes an incredible amount of energy for them to spawn and raise fry.
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Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. *Mental note-no wild caught crickets*
 
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