Re:Two Questions

[ProfPhilo@aol.com]

greetings all,
I am currently keeping and spawning N. aureocephalus. Origininally I was 
keeping them at ~ pH 6 which they did very well. Currently they are in a 
different tank with a pH of around 7 in which they still spawn but I haven't 
had any free-swimmers yet...hmmm. I would say that they are easy to spawn. 
The mother is very 'hyper' about her brood and tends to eat the babies if 
stressed for any reason. She keeps them in a very tight group undergoing some 
kind of rapid shaking motion over the group. I've seen this in other but 
these guys seem the most intense. The fry grow  fast and start out relativly 
large (in my limited experience) but are shy. I have about 4 survivors right 
now. 
I have a trio, 2 females and one male. the male is a magnificent fish with ( 
as previously stated) flowing fins. He is the biggest fish that I own, I'll 
go measure him...
although holding ruler to glass isn't the most quantitative method of 
measuring I'd say he is about 8-9 cm long maybe 10 with fins. The females are 
about half that. 
Actually the Linke and Staeke picture is pretty good in my opinion. Mine are 
not too aggressive, the females harrass each other more than anything else. 
They become darkly checkered when in the spawing mode or protecting eggs/fry. 
The male spawns with both females alternately but one female is definately 
the 'alfa' female as we call her. 
And that is my two cents on Nanacara aureocephalus.
Tarah


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