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Post by murdock6701 on Jan 31, 2009 20:46:17 GMT -5
good to know - my problem now is finding a table or base for the longer tank - I have all my aquariums in my office along w/ a computer table and a single bed! and I have to change out 2 tanks to make the longer one work - trust me, not an easy task when it's freezing outside and everything I just aquired used is caked in scale - snail elimination is my main focus and this is a minor setback but everything has to come together at once in order for it all to fit! thanks
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Post by goldenpuon on Jan 31, 2009 22:28:19 GMT -5
Sorry to hear about the steback John. Are you sure they're in hiding because of the male? It's just a guess but there may be other factors at work here (please correct me if I'm wrong) such as water quality, your current snail infestation, and if the fish are not just stressed but also sick. What are your parameters and also, when you say you're fish seem stressed, what exactly do you mean? Rapid breathing, sluggishness, etc.? Do they have injuries or spots of any sort?
Also for stressed fish, I find that providing manyhiding places, turning off the aquarium lights for a little while, and increasing aeration as well as disturbing the tank as little as possible a good way to help destress fish.
Also, it might be helpful to look over them one more time to verify that they are all female. Other than that, I wouldn't know how to tell the genders apart. I would go with Jon V on that one.
Hope that helps!
Renee
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Post by jonv on Jan 31, 2009 22:50:53 GMT -5
John, the long can wait. It'll be nice when you get it, but I suggest, take out everything in the substrate for a few hours. In my tanks, this occurs during water changes all the time. I start out taking everything out before I do any outake of water. The time it takes me to complete the whole process varies from 1-3 hours, so there is an extended period of time my stock goes with an empty decor in the substrate, and I find, it doesn't cause many fights to break out. This wouldn't occur in your case, but I'm just pointing out that removing the stuff for a little while, it will cause some stress, but not enough I'd worry about. It will however force your 2 females out into the open, and by doing so, might allow them to sense the male is gone. I'd opt for an hour or two, just empty is so there's nothing but gravel left.
In my years of working with Africans, I'd be really surprised what you see going on is due to any factor of water chemistry or O2 levels, the snails in the other tank or anything like that. This seems to be a matter of stress yes, but not from the water, but from the male. He just must be trying to entice them to spawn and they know they aren't ready is all. There is no harm going to be done to either the females or the male keeping them seperated for any extended period of time either. Just when you put him back in, do a complete rearrange in the tank, so he's got to spend a good deal of time acclimating again. This will help keep him going right after the females on sight down a bit.
This also is something I feel is a factor. These are the only Mbuna in the tank. The male doesn't see anything in that tank that might challenge him, so he's probably feeling very assertive. Consider that in my tanks, I have while a bigger footprint, but several species of Mbuna, Haps, and Peacocks. This factors into the big picture in the males. Not only do my stocked males have to worry about males of their own species, but males of others as well. This helps keep their aggression on females down a little bit then if I had just a single species in there.
I really feel the addition of 1-2 more females in there will help keep him from getting too rough on anyone, and just might wear him out a bit as well. But do, when you have time, empty out all the decor in the substrate for an hour or 2 for those females. Might not work, but should be minimal work for you to do.
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 1, 2009 10:43:14 GMT -5
thanks John, that was my game plan only I was doing I a little at a time - today I will take everything out - Renee, there are no snails in my African tank - water parameters are exceleent in all my tanks - I have no sick or injured fish but thanks for your input
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Post by goldenpuon on Feb 1, 2009 11:43:32 GMT -5
You're welcome Murdock. I did the best I could but Jon V is the real expert here. I'm still glad I was able to help still a little bit though.
Good luck with the labs!
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 1, 2009 20:47:25 GMT -5
just a quick post to let you all know I am taking my time here on the lab tank - I gutted all caves/decor minus 2 flat stones so the females can relax and I can actually see my fish - after a few days without the male they seem more like platys, nice and calm, and once again come to my finger outside the tank - may leave them this way for a few months as the male seems to enjoy where he is too - am going to put the 2 idendenical 20 gallon tanks side by side to look like a 40, that way the labs can still see each other without all the aggression - when I decide to breed them it will be a bit easier in the transformation as well - thank you all for your help and patience w/ me on my project - John
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Post by brenda on Feb 1, 2009 21:04:28 GMT -5
Glad to hear that John, I think that is a good idea.
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Post by Carl on Feb 2, 2009 11:27:14 GMT -5
Glad to hear that John, I think that is a good idea. I agree! Good idea. Carl
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Post by goldenpuon on Feb 2, 2009 16:17:02 GMT -5
Great idea. I hope everything works out as planned from here.
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 3, 2009 21:17:06 GMT -5
just read an article on yellow labs that stated that the males don't have egg spots like other mbuna - anybody ever heard of this? my male has an egg spot and a black stripe on his dorsal fin - the other 2 presumed females have no egg spots and more of a silver striping on their dorsal fins - sorry to be asking so many questions which I'm sure may be boring to some of you more experienced keepers - I just want to learn as much as possible to avoid mistakes - thanks to you all for your patience w/ me - John
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Post by jonv on Feb 3, 2009 21:20:13 GMT -5
I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else yet, but I can share with you something I found really interesting I learned about a few people in the groups I've been talking in. The barring on the body and even black along the face is considered to be a good thing in this species. This I never knew. However, I can also say, I think it's also a matter of personal preference too. If you really like the solid yellow look, I don't see anything wrong with trying to keep the group with that look. In the cichlid specific groups I've been talking in, it seems these people prefer and like the barred look.
Nothing I've seen on that topic in regards to the spots John.
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 3, 2009 21:33:05 GMT -5
1st time I ever read that too - here's a quip from the article"
"Electric Yellows are not difficult to breed. Water should be changed and the level dropped. Males are larger, brighter colored and have more black on the fins. Males exhibit more aggressive behavior when ready to breed. They do not show egg spots, unlike most mbunas. It is best to breed one male with several females. Electric Yellows are mouth brooders. The female cares for 10 – 25 eggs in her mouth. She also keeps the fry in her mouth for up to 3 weeks. The female should be isolated after breeding. The fry can be fed brine shrimp."
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Post by bikeguy33 on Feb 4, 2009 0:13:27 GMT -5
i have often seen egg spots on yellows.....maybe depends on the darkness of fins...who knows. here in canada....the only time i have experienced bars and dirty looking faces are through a very shallow olympic size gene pool. these fish started solid yellow....but generation after generation....these traits start showing up. still very pretty fish....i love them...
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Post by eve on Feb 4, 2009 2:13:04 GMT -5
this picture should prove otherwise
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Post by Carl on Feb 4, 2009 10:22:35 GMT -5
just read an article on yellow labs that stated that the males don't have egg spots like other mbuna - anybody ever heard of this? my male has an egg spot and a black stripe on his dorsal fin - the other 2 presumed females have no egg spots and more of a silver striping on their dorsal fins - sorry to be asking so many questions which I'm sure may be boring to some of you more experienced keepers - I just want to learn as much as possible to avoid mistakes - thanks to you all for your patience w/ me - John First my friend, this is what a forum is for, to discuss and learn, especially in subjects where there are certainly "Grey" areas such as this. Although I am far from an expert in breeding of East African Cichlids, I have bred Electric Yellows/ Labs many times (I have known them as Electric Yellows for most of fish keeping years). I have never noticed this myself, and my recollection is that the males all had egg spots, although I would not swear to this. The quote from the article also stated "The fry can be fed brine shrimp" which I would take issue with, meaning being an omnivore, I generally fed these fish powdered flake foods such as Spirulina 20, although newly hatched Brine Shrimp would be OK, getting the shrimp to the fry may be difficult, and I never even attempted this and did quite well with feeding fine Spirulina as a first food ( Hikari First Bites is a good alternative as well). My point in bringing up the first food subject is that is this makes me question the validity of the egg spot statement as well. Carl
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 4, 2009 11:23:04 GMT -5
Eve, I see the tan egg spot on the male's anal fin on the right....the one on the left also looks like a male w/ the black stripe on it's dorsal fin - thanks Carl - figured it might be of interest but I'm still and apways will be learning
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Post by jonv on Feb 4, 2009 12:14:21 GMT -5
I want to say something about what I feel about these egg spots. I just personally feel this is a mythical subject that happend in the past to coincide with a high number of fish that turned out to be male and people started using that as a free hand guide to sexing a fish. I can't prove this, it's just what I think. If it were up to me, I'd convince every African keeper to totally disregard this aspect in sexing Africans. No bash on Eve's points and observations as I can say a have a few males that follow this trend, however, I've also got quite a few females that show just as many spots as males. It's an extremely soft science as a tool at best. I often say in answers that egg spots alone should never be the only factor you sex any species of Africans on. I'm confident most would agree with that. The thing in particular with Yellows John, as Eve clearly showed, it doesn't apply in all cases. I'm curious to know something. In what you read John, do they mention the collection point or where the tank kept fish's ancestors were from? If this was omitted or not talked about, I'd question this. As recently speaking about yellow labs with some 30 plus year keepers in the other cichlid specific forums about the barring and black spots, it's been repeated among the keepers that the collection point comes into play when it comes to the look of the labs. Most of the common kept ones that are popular here in the US were collected out of Lion's Cove, but if you look like in Cichlid-Forum on Labidochromis Caereleus, you'll see several listings with it seperated by collection point. I just want to show something really quick too. First two are males. Male Flavus and Males Taiwan Reef. What I think should be said about spots, is that if using spots to ID, any significant number of spots on an anal fin gives stronger evidence of a male, but single or 1-2 spots, it could very well go either way. Third clip are females that are showing spots. Because of this, I really disregard spots in general. These aren't the best of clips, I have glare on the tank and they are fairly active at the moment so it's hard to 0 in on any one fish. s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/knottypeater/?action=view¤t=020409_1157a.flvs200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/knottypeater/?action=view¤t=020409_1157b.flvs200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/knottypeater/?action=view¤t=020409_1158a.flv
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 4, 2009 12:59:10 GMT -5
ok, so strike out the spots as a means of sexual ID.....black doral stripes on male vs "silver/gray" stripes on female mean anything? cuz if not, then there is the distinct possibility I either have a large female or another male - if size is the only dtermining factor in sexing them, I'm definitely confused - I want to set up my African tank soon but I don't want 2 males in it - AGH!!!!
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Post by eve on Feb 4, 2009 13:46:20 GMT -5
lol, this is exactly on what jon and i disagree on since ages, really made me laugh that it would come up again this is the best picture i ever had of my yellows, which is a pair actually also it is always assumed that the females don't have the black on their top fins, which my pictures proves as well that that is not true this picture is in fact a female and a male jon mentions other cichlids as well just take as example the red zebras, both male and female will have the eggspots but is it a sure sign to sex them??? absolutely not, not even my guy at the store i shop can sex them 100% and that should say something the only way to find out for 100% is venting them i'm definitely not a fan of this method as it's very stressful on the fish as well as on the keeper more about, with some awesome pictures can be found here www.malawimayhem.com/articles_venting.shtml
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Post by murdock6701 on Feb 4, 2009 14:28:17 GMT -5
ta da! so there is an answer! thank you Eve! doubt if I'm gonna put my fish thru that kind of stress, or myself for that matter....thanks ALL for the input
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