Fry coming out of my ears

[Paul Evans <pm_evans@yahoo.com>]

Until recently I had 6 A. cruzi F1s in my 20 gallon
standard dimesions tank.  2 males and 4 females.  My
goal was to thin them out to a pair or trio in the
near future and try to get some F2s.

They beat me to it.  About 3.5 weeks ago the dominant
male allowed one of the females to take over a pot in
his terratory.  Previously, he kept the other fish out
of his 2/3 of the tank.  A week later there were 8
free swimming fry.

A few days later two more females were guarding pots. 
One pot was obviously in the terratory of the dominant
male but the other one was kind of on the border and
the female protecting it seemed to somewhat tolerate
the subdominate male nearby so I give it a good
possibility that he got in on the action.

Yesterday there was one more batch of free swimming
fry , about 20 I think.  Today, one more batch that I
wasn't able to count.  Also as of today the first
batch is no longer protected by the mother.  These fry
are about 7-8mm now.  The females protecting their fry
also seem to tolerate the older fry (i.e. they don't
chase them away when they are close).

These fish have been sexually mature for a while yet
they showed no inclination to spawn.  Then all of a
sudden three spawns.  It has been a very dry winter
here in California.  Until a month ago anyway.  It
seems like as soon as it started raining these three
females colored up and started spawning.  Does anybody
think there is a link?  I was kind of surprised they
spawned at all given the somewhat crowded conditions
(6 A. cruzi no dithers).  

Paul

   
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