Laetacara bonanza

[Pete Johnson <petej@wordsanddeeds.com>]

The month of May delivered many small Laetacara to my fishroom. Three 
weeks ago a pair of L. dorsiger delivered another 200 young, followed a 
week later by a pair of L. curviceps with about 100 fry. Three nights ago 
a friend noticed a cloud of fry in my L. sp. orangeflossen tank. Looks 
like about 200 little fish with two excellent parents. I am especially 
proud of these -- the parents were brought to me from Germany by David 
Soares in early April.

Although in the past I've had difficulty raising L. dorsiger fry -- 
they've been too small to eat baby brine shrimp, though other species of 
Laetacara newborn fry seem to gobble them down -- this family required no 
special attention. The babies may have started eating infusoria from a 
large clump of Java moss in the tank, or maybe they were bigger than the 
previous batches since this is a new pair of wild fish.

I am already awash in L. sp. buckelkopf fry from a February spawning. I 
left many of the babies in with the parents to slow them down. This pair 
has raised more than 400 babies so far.

In other spawning news, a pair of Anomalochromis thomasi produced about 
100 fry two weeks ago.

A pair of Pelvicachromis affin pulcher also spawned in a community tank, 
the second batch of young they've launched in this tank.

I have eight L. thayeri which have not yet spawned for me. Anyone else 
worked with this fish?

The Apistos have been pretty quiet -- I've got some bright yellow female 
nijsseni and sp. pandurini with attentive males, but no action for awhile.


        If wishes were fishes we'd all have ponds

Pete Johnson  /  San Jose, CA  /  petej@wordsanddeeds.com