Now to the point - Preferably give them their own tank, choosing the best male that you have for this purpose. What I have seen is that the alpha male will not allow others to breed no matter how big the tank is, the alpha male that I have even raids pots of other males and eats up any eggs laid there.
The alpha male - (has fathered 100s of kids till date and is my prized possession...
)
His favorite female
What I have found is that they prefer slightly acidic waters. They have even bred in neutral waters but the breeding was consistent in acidic waters.
Water parameters in the breeding tank are:
Hardness: ard 100-120ppm
Temp: raise to 26DC then do a water change of 30-40%, targeting 24DC afterwards
pH: ard 6.5
Feeding - They anyway eat live food so provide a lot of live food like romifex, grindals, small snails (they eat small pest snails as well, in fact I use them as snail control mechanism in my planted) 2-3 times a day...
They are cave spawners. The male will select a pot and try to lure a female into his potential nesting site, where the female will lay any where between 25-80 eggs. Afterwards the female is driven away and the male will take care of the eggs. He will fan them to avoid the eggs being infested by fungus till they hatch.
The male protecting his nesting site
The eggs normally hatch within 2-3 days. The male will take care of the fry till they are free swimming. It is best to remove the male at this time as he might consider them food and eat them.
The fries are really small to even accept microworms so feed them infusoria for 5-6 days after they become free swimming. They will start accepting microworms after that.
A free swimming fry
Around 2.5mths old fries
[img]https://lh3.googleueLgOa__w/UdHGoF8xlwI/AAAAAAAAAfE/UZdJ0U37wIk/s912/IMG_6977.JPG[/img]
The juvi resembling his dad (clicked yest) ard 3.5 mths old
on having got two Alpha males now, vijjy, and that too, in the best possible way. ..... sigh !
