Metriaclima pulpican

Well I am new to African cichlids all together, I have raised Ca and Sa cichlids for many years . I have a 55 set up with 5 Metriaclima pulpican and 7 yellow labs. I pl on getting some rusties as soon as I can find some. Any way I am posting here because I have never bred Africans and would like to know a bit more on the process. I have done a bunch of research on the topic and wanted to see if there were any other suggestions on set up of tanks m/f ratios and the time process. I am no newbie to breeding cichlids I have bred many different substrate spawners but never mouth booders. If anybody out there breed these please share your input. Thanx in advance.

Depending on their aggression level 1 male with 3 or 4 females can be used to spread out the chasing and other problems. With fish like yellow labs this is an unlikely scenario but with the more aggressive Cichlids it is always possible.

There are a good number of Cichlids that will change color or at the very least darken colors when they want to start breeding. The male will chase the females around and normally do a little "dance" in the sand. Once they pick out a spot (mine like the sand.) The female if she complies will lay her eggs. The male will pass over them and hopefully fertilize. Most of the Africans are mouth brooders. As such once fertilized the female will pick up the eggs and hold them in her mouth. She may spit them once and awhile and let them graze on some food then suck them back in. Depending on what Cichlid it is 2-4 weeks later and fry will be spit out. During the end of this period of time is a good opportunity to strip the eggs from the mother if you wish to raise the fry outside the main tank. If not then just let things run their course. The great thing about Cichlids is they are great parents and the fry tend to be pretty strong.

If you let the female keep holding she will start to spit. The female does not have to spit them all at once however, and many times a few fry will remain after her first spitting.

From my experience there is nothing really special to do to get them to breed. If they are happy where they are and feel safe enough to show good colors and eat healthy they will spawn. Many of the Cichlids will spawn with just about anything haha.

Thanks for the info. I dont have much open sand area in the tank. I ended up adding 100lbs of rock since the time you saw it. I will get some pics up tomorrow and show you what Im working with.

Honestly they don't all do in just the stand. Most are happy with a flat surface it is only the nest builders that really like sand but even they are happy with the tops of pots and other flat surfaces haha.

Ok here is the first go round

Added a bit more

And here is what it is right now. I enede up putting egg crate under all the rock.

Is this enough rock? Too much? Not enough?

Looks perfect to me. Mine is about half way and it provides more then enough caves and hiding spots for the fish. If they can get in and out of the holes they are good. Just make sure that there is enough space for them in the holes. They are good at getting around in tight places but I have had a few get stuck haha. Feeding time is always head count time.

Cool just wanted to make sure these guys were happy. Thanks for the knowledge.

No problem. As they grow you made need to adjust things to accommodate their size but changing the rocks around every once and awhile is a good thing for these guys. It gives you a chance to clean in between all these rocks and will break up any territories they might have made. Afterwards there is normally a little spat as they try to regain a new home but many times it can easily reset aggression over one spot.

Yeah re arranging tanks is something I tend to do every month or two so they should get new territories as the months go by.

Just wait till they get big and can move sand around like some kind of loader lol. You will come home and find all the sand that was on the left is not just a glass bottom and there is a mound on the other side haha.

Yeah that last picture there is a bit of a mound forming in the middle. I added the egg crate last week so the tank was bare ,I flattened all the sand over the egg crate and stacked the rocks on top. Now I guess they are becoming landscapers. Lol