White Lab Holding!

I drove to Plano last weekend to get a white lab trio; sadly one of the females that was promised me was missing from the guy's tank the night before. I ended up only getting a pair. Anyhow, he told me that he didn't have much luck breeding them, because his tank was heavily stocked with peacocks and that the female never held to full term.

I placed the pair into a 40 Breeder and turned the temp up to 82F. Left them there for three days then did a water change to release cool water into the tank in the evening. The next day, she was holding! I took her out and stripped her (didn't trust that she would follow through) and placed 26 eggs into a home made tumbler that I made a few days ago (after visiting Kory and looking at his Tumbler)

Now I wait til the eggs hatch and the fry grow!


The Pair


The DIY Tumbler


The eggs.


I have pictures of how I made the tumbler...but haven't had time to post them. Hope you enjoy these pics!

Congrats to you and the best of luck!!!

Well done. You little


Correct me if im wrong but I thought that the Female had to hold for a few days to get the eggs fertilized correctly? Well I hope you get all of them to live that way I can get some

KMX wrote:

Well done. You little


Correct me if im wrong but I thought that the Female had to hold for a few days to get the eggs fertilized correctly? Well I hope you get all of them to live that way I can get some

Well if that is the case then I hope he fertilized them in the 17 hour window that she was holding. I guess it's all trial and error. Now I know! I was just anxious because my sp44 only held for 3 days then they were gone! and I was really looking forward to having sp44 fry too... From my understanding the male and female do the dancing ritual and then she lays her eggs and scoops them into her mouth, they continue to dance in circles as the female will then place her mouth near his anal fin where he will release a stream of sperm 4-5 times while she scoops it into her mouth and tumbles the eggs around the sperm. Once the ritual is done, she hides to protect her eggs... lets cross our fingers and hope these eggs hatch... if not, I should be able to get them to do this again in a few weeks.

Sometimes they don't hold long enough b/c they are new at it and don't really understand it. Also if you feed while a female is holding she might be thiniking food and spit or swallow them. The more times they breed the better they get at it. ( just like humans )


My Yellow Belly Alberts use to hold for only a few days at 1st but now I let them hold for 7-10 days before spit.

Well next time she holds, I'll let her carry it to term in a 10-20 gallon by herself. I wasn't prepared for this one as much as I would have liked.

So I lost the eggs... but I gained some experience. Come next month, I'll have 20+ fry of white labs. I'll let her hold for 2.5 weeks like I go all my other fish....then strip her... got too excited on this one. My fault.

Hey happens. You learn by doing.


Who is editing my post????? No no