Re: Microgeophagus ramirezi

[Marco Lacerda <marcolacerda@ax.apc.org>]

Carlos Eduardo Alves Ribeiro wrote:
> 
> Hi, Marco ! Thanks for your help.

Hi, Carlos! You're always welcome.

> The tank-bred pairs that I mentioned were
> from a friend of mine, who breeds M. ramirezi at least for six generations.
> He has a huge tank and the M. ramirezi spawns there, and he always moves
> the eggs to another tank, because there are some bigger fish that could eat
> the eggs or the offspring.

So I would say, yes, you're right.
When we raise artificially dwarf cichlids for generations, the F(n) new 
parents often eat the eggs or offspring, with a clear deviation from 
normal behaviour in Nature.

> The "wild caught" M. ramirezi are not really wild
> caught : they were bought at a petshop and they were raised in Mage. Does
> the M. ramirezi in Mage raise its eggs and fry or are the eggs incubated
> artificially ?

All breeders from Mage don't artificially incubate the eggs, but simply 
put some breeding pairs in earthen outside ponds. It works like in the 
natural biotope, the parents that eat their eggs/offspring are 
eliminated by natural selection.
This doesn't happen with your friend's M. ramirezi, as he artificially 
raises the fry.
I had myself much of this problem with A. macmasteri and some aquarium 
strains of A. agassizii.

All the best, Marco.