Re: raising cichlids without their parents

[IDMiamiBob@aol.com]

G. Kadar writes:

>>  It dawned on me this moprning that her mother
>>had moved the wrigglers as they hatched from the cave to an indent in a
>>  piece
>>of driftwood that had peice of slate over it, forming a "cave" with a solid
>>bottom.  All the caves in her tank have gravel bottoms.  So this week I
>>  will
>>create some spots for the fry to get moved to, and try one more time.  Bad
>>parents?  No, just bad husbandry on my part, until I can prove differently.
>  
>  If the question of whether fish learn anything is not an issue, why bother?

Because it is also the practice of the great-grandparents of these
cacatuoides, which originally I got from Dave Soares, to do the same thing.
And every spawn in the last three generations that I have "convinced" the
mother to raise were done that same way.  It's not that the female has learned
this, but that her genetic coding calls for certain specific practices which
are consistent with the onment of her native habitat, namely the Amazon.
These conditions permit her to find a shelter among the leaves and roots which
have a solid bottom.  If she does not have these conditons, then she is driven
by instinct to detirmine that the spawn is not salvageable, and she reabsorbs
the energy and nutrition of the fry for future use.  No, she doesn't reason it
out like that, but that is essentially what her instincts drive her to do.

And yes, natural selection compelled these instinctive behaviors into the
fish, but it took millenia, not three or four generations, to achieve.  My
contention is that it would take dozens, nay, hundreds, of generations for
genetically poor parents to  gain the upper hand over good parents in captive
breeding.  And some of us are still giving the good parents the advantage, and
therefore the instinct will survive.

The reason I always succeeded in getting angels to display traditional cichlid
parenting skills is because I always paid attention to this kind of detail.

Bob Dixon


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