Over the years, it has been my practice, like many other breeders, to feed unwanted fry to fish in other tanks. A net full here ... a net full there... and so on. Well sometimes a few fry manage to escape the "jaws of death" (I know ... a little overly dramatic). Case in point, I have had Paraneetroplus breidohri for a few years now and they are prolific, to say the least. I don't know if there is any species I've ever had that has spawned as much. About a year ago, I dumped a bunch of 1/4" fry into my 180G Madagascan tank, containing adult P. polleni, P. grandidieri, and P. menarambo. There is plenty of structure in there, and over the last year I've been watching a few 'breidohri' carving out a small niche for themselves. They are an aggressive, bold, and fiesty fish. It's not uncommon to see a 2" female pushing and nipping at a fish five times her size. To be sure, Madagascar cichlids aren't the best piscivores so it isn't surprising that some survived, two females and a male. They are now between 4" and 5", growing slowly into beautiful specimens. The females have been flirting with every fish in the tank, hoping to get "lucky". One female, when she was about 3", singled out a 10" Ptychochromis grandidieri as her potential mate, and she certainly had his attention, but ultimately, he just couldn't figure her out. Both females have spawned a couple of times all by themselves. Where was the male in all of this? Neither female would accept him as a mate ... until now. Here are some pics of the precocious 'breidohri', swimming about like they own the tank, keeping the Madagascans on their toes ... er, I mean fins.
