Stomatepia mongo

deeda

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Mar 26, 2008
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Milingu Milingu I've never used an egg tumbler but it seems about right from videos I've watched.

Is that a Ziss tumbler? If so, they have some videos on how much movement the eggs and eventually fry should have about 3/4 of the way down the following link Ziss Tumbler
 

Milingu

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Jul 19, 2015
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I'm assuming the dark colored stomatepia Mongo is the male.
Yes, in the video the dark ones are males. But also the females are sometimes fully black. They communicate a lot with their colours. I haven't fully figured out what the different colours and patterns mean. Sommetimes they are all pitch black. That normaly happens when the whole group is relaxed. When there is a female ready to mate (can start several weeks before the actuall spawning) the bigger males go fully black and the for the rest of the group it is the lower the rank the less black they show. Exept for the 2 (or 3?) females which are often fully black though they don't allways engage in the fights (they sometimes defend the spawning site more than the males).

They all lose the black colours during feeding time. I guess for hunting light grey and brownish colours are an advantage. If the video would be longer you could see the big males faded too. Here is picture of them with less black.
s_mongo_028.jpg
 
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tlindsey

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Yes, in the video the dark ones are males. But also the females are sometimes fully black. They communicate a lot with their colours. I haven't fully figured out what the different colours and patterns mean. Sommetimes they are all pitch black. That normaly happens when the whole group is relaxed. When there is a female ready to mate (can start several weeks before the actuall spawning) the bigger males go fully black and the for the rest of the group it is the lower the rank the less black they show. Exept for the 2 (or 3?) females which are often fully black though they don't allways engage in the fights (they sometimes defend the spawning site more than the males).

They all lose the black colours during feeding time. I guess for hunting light grey and brownish colours are an advantage. If the video would be longer you could see the big males faded too. Here is picture of them with less black.
View attachment 1514340
Very interesting.
 
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