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Cyphotilapia
frontosa “Mpimbwe Blue”
Eric
Bodrock
Photo
courtesy African Trading Post
Finformation,
February
2003
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 These
jumbo Lake Tanganyikan mouthbrooding cichlids proved to be a true
test of my patience. My adult “Fronts,” as they are commonly
called, were originally acquired by a friend of mine as small, first
generation (F1) fry, about five years earlier. After they grew for
a couple of years, their owner decided that they needed to be housed
in a larger aquarium. Space restrictions didn’t allow for any
additional aquariums to be set up, so they were offered to me with
hopes of providing them with an ideal home for their continuing growth
and possible spawning. Needless to say, I eagerly accepted them into
my home fishroom with hopes of some day spawning them.
At sizes ranging from five to seven inches, the eleven fish lived
in their own one hundred and fifty gallon aquarium. The tank was filtered
with an undergravel filter using four lift tubes with vigorous airflow.
An evenly mixed substrate of natural gravel and crushed coral maintained
the pH in the 8.0 – 8.4 range. A few pieces of large rock along
with several jumbo Anubias plants made up the tank décor. Temperature
was maintained around 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I changed twenty-five
to fifty percent of the water every week to week and a half. The fishes’
diet consisted of assorted (large) flakes, live black worms, freeze-dried
krill, and chopped silversides.
Six months passed. The fish continued to grow nicely, they established
a peaceful pecking order, and they all seemed happy…not happy
enough to spawn, but happy! Being a bit frustrated with this, I decided
to add a group of eight adult Aulonocara into the aquarium with them.
My thoughts were that this might act as a trigger to get the fronts
to spawn. Well, another six months passed with no signs of spawning
activity. At this point I removed the Aulonocara and thinned out the
group of Fronts by removing a couple of the larger males.
After several months it finally happened—so I thought—a
female carrying a mouthful of eggs. She stopped eating, became inactive,
stayed hidden and showed a bulge in her lower jaw, all signs of a
spawn…. so I thought. I anxiously watched each day to make sure
she was still carrying, thinking I’d let her carry them for
about ten days before I stripped the fry from her. She made it, ten
days and still carrying. Now the big moment, I removed the glass lid,
filled a shallow bucket with aquarium water and grabbed a couple of
large nets. I was able to catch her without much trouble. While I
cradled her in my hand, I dipped her into the bucket and with my finger
I pulled her lower jaw down to release the fry. I was amazed at what
I saw next: out from her mouth comes a huge mouthful of ALGAE! YES,
ALGAE! You know the algae that grows as a sheet on the underside of
a glass lid under the aquarium light…. that algae. In a flash,
my mind thought that she was eating algae to feed the fry in her mouth,
WOW, I never heard of that before. The fry must have been older than
I thought, already absorbed their eggs sacs and the mom was feeding
them IN HER MOUTH! (Now remember, I thought of this in a flash.) As
I pulled her mouth open for the second time, out comes more algae,
then more algae and even more algae…. I could go on, but you
get the picture, she never did spit out any fry! At that moment I
was very unhappy, down right mad about it, even. I waited two years
to have them spawn and another ten days I watched her carry a mouthful
of…algae! I talked to some hard-core cichlid people and they
told me that a female mouthbrooder will sometimes “fake”
a spawn to get the males to leave her alone. A female “faking
it”—I’ve never heard of such a thing. Anyway, after
that disappointment, I said the heck with them and didn’t pay
much attention to them anymore.
After a year passed the remaining seven Fronts were moved into my
new fishroom. I placed the largest male, now about twelve inches long,
along with two females, at about seven inches long, into a seventy-five
gallon aquarium by themselves. The others were mixed in a similar
aquarium but with other fish. Same conditions were kept as in their
previous home. About a year passed and one day a fellow fish club
member was visiting when we noticed a half-inch fry swimming in the
tank with the trio. Several days earlier I thought that a female was
carrying but I didn’t bother to get my hopes up again (Not going
to fool me twice!). I removed that female and stripped out ten other
fry from her mouth, no algae either! I also found another fry swimming
in the aquarium. That’s how I finally spawned my fronts!
I swore that as soon as I got fry from them for BAP, I was going to
get rid of them all, but I must admit, the large male from the breeding
tank has become my fishroom pet and I think I’ll end up keeping
all his kids too! |
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