I decided to leave the latest spawn in with the parents rather than 'pull' it, to see how far things would progress naturally. Well, after 6 days of diligently being guarded, the eggs have begun to hatch. There has been a marked change behaviorally in the parents. The usual scenario pre-hatching is that the female is 'tight' to the eggs and the male does peripheral guard duty, cruising about looking to repel threats. Now, both parents are attentive to what is going on inside the pot. As the fry fall from the roof of the pot to the bottom, the parents are both searching for fry that may have wandered from the site, and are retrieving them. They are suddenly much more focused , but still keeping a wary eye out for external threats. This is the first time that the eggs of any Madagascan cichlid that I have bred, have gone to the hatching stage with the parents tending them.
