Zookeeper's Lounge

I recently had a nice surprise from my two African cichlids. Nearly two weeks ago, I was feeding them and a small cloud of tiny babies came up out of the substrate. They are now growing very well and really starting to look like fish as opposed to little tadpole-shaped things. Sadly, the parents aren't the same species so I have lots of little hybrids on my hands. The parents are a male Brichardi or Princess cichlid (Neolamprologus brichardi) and a female Daffodil cichlid (N. pulcher). I hope to soon seperate them and get them mates of the same species.
Here are the parents together

Here is the mother with the fry a few days after hatching

And here is a bad picture of the fry a few days ago

Aww cute! Brichardis are pretty interesting to breed. I look forward to any stories you have about these, you may come across differences with the parents being different species (albeit very similar... I would suggest that they could be subspecies... guess it depends on if you're a "lumper" or a "splitter")

They are being really great parents. The first night after the fry became free swimming, they snuck off into other parts of the tank and the male was frantically catching them in his mouth and spitting them back into the shell they spawned in. The female doesn't do as much for the fry as the male, she generally just hovers in the middle of them and sometimes chases the plecos that are in the tank (there are two clowns in there temporarily until my 55 gallon tank is ready). Now the male on the other hand fights off anything (the plecos, floating anubias plants, whatever) that he seems to view as a threat at that particular moment.
It does really depend on what you read or who you ask whether they are the same or seperate species. African cichlid taxonomy can be very confusing.

Looking at the photo of the parents, I would probably assume that they are the same. But I can see some very subtle differences.

Congrats on your new bundles of joy.

Well, I know for sure that they are at least in the same genus, if not the same species. There are quite a few differances, but with rift lake cichlids the classification is very confusing. I have seen pictures of nearly identical fish labelled as Neolamprologus pulcher but one store I have been too (one of the few I would find credible enough to go by what their labels say) has them labelled as "daffodil brichardi". Some species from the area have over 20 different color variations depending on their location, yet some that appear exactly the same except for small color differences are seperate species....

The female lacks the yellow gill spot present in normal brichardi, the line between the eye and the gill is a vertical curve rather than a small horizontal line, the females eyes are ringed with yellow intstead of a solid blue, the female has a blue iridescent curve under her eye where the male has a large pattern covering the whole side of his jaws, the female has vague horizontal orange lines down her side while the male only has a few orange flecks, and finally, the female's fin streamers are a metallic blue instead of an off-white like the males
's. Of course these could all be location variations.

Whatever she is, I would like to get her a mate that is the same color variation and breed them instead of mixing colors.

I curious what the fry will grow up to look like...

The best indicator of the species is the pattern of black. The "daffodil brichardi" you've seen are probably N. pulcher - which are often called daffodils (crazy trade name I know...) They could be hybrids as well.

I'm glad you're interested in breeding a more pure strain. That's pretty important when there are fish out there that are endangered in their native habitats... including rift lake cichlids, particularly from Lake Victoria. So once you've gotten the hang of breeding fish like brichardis and others... maybe you can help sustain a captive population of an endangered species!

You're right, those probably were pulchers. Daffodil does make a little sense as they have some yellow coloration and daffodils are yellow. Some collection point variations even have almost totally yellow fins.

I'm not sure what I will do with all of these little hybrids. Hopefully the parents' new mates would accept them in their tanks so I could keep a couple of them around, although I wont count on it. That would only provide homes for maybe 6 at most though and there are probably over 40. Hopefully I will be able to find some responsible hobbyists who will not try to breed them with other fish and end up with even stranger hybrids or any 3/4 brichardi 1/4 pulcher cichlids or anything. I also don't want to give them to a store as they might end up being kept with purebreds that way too. If not, my new Central American cichlids might find them to be a tasty treat, but that is really not what I want to do.

My next tank is going to have some rarer CA cichlids (not sure exactly which yet) although as a last resort I may end up getting some higher quality firemouths (most in normal stores are so inbred I wouldn't want to try to breed them) as well as some Montezuma swordtails and possibly some rarer livebearers

Oh great, they did it again!
Now I've gone from 2 to about 100 brichardi in about 2 months!

Doh! I know how it goes with animals breeding out of control. I have zebra finches, and I keep finding eggs in the food dish. That's a real pain.

On the bright side, you can have fried fish more often.

Haha
Not quite, but my new cichlids I'm getting may enjoy some of them. I'm also going to get a synodontis catfish to keep the population under control.

congratulations with your succesfull breeding program.

I don't think "successful" is quite the word
Hopefully my next project will be successful, this time I'll actually be trying to breed the fish. My tank just finished its nitrogen cycle and will include some rarer Central American fish including livebearers and cichlids.

I got a nice pic of one of the larger ones
brichardi fry

I have guppies and they breed like crazy! they don't lay eggs though they give live birth.

Yeah, I used to have guppies
The only livebearer I have at the moment is a small male platy. I'll soon be getting a group of Montezuma swordtails too. They are different from the normal petshop swordtails. I'll be getting these from a guy I know that breeds all sorts of fish. I'll also be getting a half dozen small Central American cichlids to try to establish a breeding colony in the tank with the platy and the swordtails.