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RAISING There are basically two trends of thought when it comes to getting those new petrochromis babies into the world. The first is to let the holding petro female spit the young into a tank where only the female will inhabit the tank. The other trend of thought is to strip the female of her young. Let us first consider the pros and cons of getting those babies into the world by letting the female spit the young into the tank. Secondly we will consider the pros and cons of stripping the holding female.
Letting the female spit into the tank will take a toll on the holding female. She may eat little food if any while holding the young. This in itself will take a toll on her physical being by not getting enough to eat while holding the young to term. Even if the female holds to term and spits the young into the tank, there is a slim chance that 50 percent of the young will survive in the tank with all of the other hungry mouths that are also in the tank. Well you might say put the holding female into another tank and let her spit/release the young into that tank. That idea will work good, unfortunately when you return that female to the tank she might be considered an outcast and become a target of the rest of the petros in the tank. Do you really want to take a chance like that with one of your petro females ? The advantages of letting the female spit into a separate tank is that you have a nice tank of newly released babies to raise that will be good to create a future colony.
Letting the female hold for a number of days then strip her, has it advantages, and to me far out weights letting the female hold to term. Stripping the female too early will result in eggs that will require you to tumble the eggs. This will more than likely happen if you remove the eggs prior to 15 days. The eggs will probably not have visible marking as to where the eyes will be and the presence of a tail might not exists. If you should see an egg that has fungus , remove that egg immediately or you will risk the rest of the eggs getting fungus as well. By letting the female hold for 15+ days you will now have young with eyes and tails and a little egg sac, these eggs have a far better survival rate opposed to the eggs that were stripped prior to 15 days. I have also found that babies that are held by the mother are larger than the eggs that are being tumbled. This was done by taking some of the eggs from the holding female and also leaving some eggs for her to continue holding. Once the fry in the tumbler were just about to lose their egg sac , I striped the holding female and compared the fry to the fry that was tumbled.
If you let the female spit in the tank that has the rest of the adult fish, at least provide a lot of hiding places for the fry. An excellent form of shelter for the fry is to have a few mounds of river rock. The fry can dart in and out of the river rock piles until they are large enough to swim around without being inhaled by the larger tank inhabitants. Some of the fry will survive if this method is used. You can also set up a tank just for the holding female and let here spit into that tank, but like I mentioned above , you take a chance on the holding female becoming an outcast to the group.
If you strip the female after 15+ days you stand a excellent chance at starting a new colony with the number of fry that you would get. Certainly you will adding more members to your colony. By stripping your females you could not possibly keep all of the young. Selling the offspring will help you recoup some of the cost of your original colony.
So I am completely in favor of stripping the holding female after 15+ days because of the number of fry that will be saved and it will be much easier physically on the holding female as she does not have to carry the young the full term and regain her strength quickly. Below is a video I found on an Australian Fish site.
http://www.perthcichlid.com.au/forum...howtopic=20108
Video by DazzaBozza
Feed crushed flake food to the young until you can feed crumbles (micro pellets)….. Also making sure that you perform the proper water changes to help the fry grow much faster. You will be amazed at how fast your newly born fry will grow. The larger the tank the longer it will take for the tank to be in need of water change. Weekly water changes will insure that your petros grow very fast. one brand of pelleted foods because there are a few good brands out on the market. If you find a successful breeder find out what kind of food that person is feeding…. There is one rule of thumb … just because it works for that person , does not mean that it will work for you… So all of us must go through a trial and error learning process. The type of food you select for you petros is also based on price that you feel comfortable spending. So if you see a ton of breeders using a particular brand of food , there must be something to it.
Golden Pearls is another excellent food for your petros bust must be fed sparingly.
Finely blended shrimp mix (see Feeding Those Petros article) is another good source of food for your young petros….
A tank that has an ample and a continuous supply of algae will let your petros graze as they do in the wild. Tanks like this are in areas that have a lot of sun light or has a source of constant light that will produce a lot of algae.
The other key to raising those petro babies is to give them as much space to grow up as possible… If you have at least a 55 gallon tank to raise those petro babies that is a plus. Raising petro babies in a 125 you will get amazing growth.
The last part of this equation is filtration and water changes and temperature.
The water should be filtered but with minimal flow in the tank. A good example of this is say an Aquaclear 110 and a couple of sponge filter would do the trick on a 125 gallon tank (6 footer). Some would say two Aquaclear 110 on a 125 gallon tank. You make the call.
The temperature should be 78 to 80 degrees.
If all of the above has been instituted then you are well on your way to “Raising Those Petro Babies”.
Problems that I have encountered when I try to raise petrochromis babies.
Whenever I mix different petro specie babies in the same tank…. There is a big killing spree. When I only keep one drop of babies in the tank ,,, there are no problems…. I don’t know what would happen if I mixed different (sized) drops of the same species into the same tank ? I will figure this out sooner or later … hopefully sooner LOL ….
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