They are out!!

[Karin]

Hi all!! Yesterday my Borelii girl show up her fry!!Today my Nijsseni girl show hers!

I was sure about what was going on at the Borelliis tank, but was very unsure about the story next door at the Nijssenis. They heve surprised me today while water changing!! (BTW, bringing RO water from the lab must have done the trick).

PS: are my Nijsseni, Nijsseni?

 

[Mol_PMB]

Great news - well done

 

[macmasteri]

Very Nijcceni

 

[Karin]

After being feeding the fry with BBS and everything going OK at both tanks (the Borelli’s and the Nijsseni’s) yesterday I was really surprised when I saw the nij mom was having approximately half her brood. The male was not eating babies and she was letting him kind of near them at her corner although not very happy (I would say). I was puzzled. Suddenly at the opposite side of the tank far from mom I saw the other half of the brood. They were eating on a java moss ball by a second unused cave. Daddy was going from there to mom’s corner all the time. She was kind of chasing him away. He was in charge of the gang on the other corner! They clouded around him each time he approached. I think that mom doesn’t like it at all. Is he stealing the fry? How did the fry get to that corner of the tank? Following whom? Unbelievable!! Is that an usual behavior? Today there are definitively two raising areas…


Here some pics, not very good I am afraid.

Karin

 

[gerald]

That's not unusual for Apisto fathers to take care of fry too, especially in pair-breeding species and even in harem-breeders if there's only one female present, or if all his females have fry. (Either help out, or get beat up).

 

[Karin]

thanks Gerald, I am impressed! I guess he took the fry from the female then.

 

[Karin]

I wish to know for sure if the female is nijsseni, what do you think?

 

[gerald]

I have never kept nijsseni myself, but I would have guessed baenschi based on her prominent barred pattern and lack of a large single side-spot. Other folks here have more experience with the nijsseni complex than i do.

 

[Karin]

I think pretty much the same... not sure when looking at the male.

 

[Frank Hättich]

I agree with Gerald, your female is A. baenschi, whereas your male looks like A. nijsseni.

 

[Karin]

Thanks Frank for replying. I guess that is it. the female looks like baenschi and the male like nijsseni. that makes the fry a hybrid!! Unless the parents are hybrid too... that is a possibility too.

 

[Karin]

The male stole the fry from the female. First he stole just half the brood. Then a few days ago all the fry was swimming around him while the female is all alone at the other corner of the tank. She is afraid of the male and he is intended not to give any fry back. He is nasty to her… and she is nasty to the hatchets…

He is clearly determined to raise them all by himself… the fry agrees. How is that female loose her aggression? Has he showed her he wins?

The borellii female on the contrary is not allowing the male near the fry. She is brave. The fry looks smaller than the neighbors. Nevertheless both gangs seem healthy.

 

[gerald]

Maybe because the mother and father are different species, their pair-bond could be weak and the male is now rejecting her. The short-term gratification of courting and spawning has now given way to the long-term task of raising the kids, and she's just not "right" for him anymore. (Those are the instincts that are supposed to keep different species from inter-breeding in the first place, but in close-confinement in aquariums those instincts don't always work). The fry presumably follow whichever parent is showing the correct parental behaviors and colors. If the female is no longer in her breeding colors, or acting like a guarding mother, the fry may choose to follow Dad.

 

[Karin]

Hi Gerald, hi all.

I have to agree. It is clear now that the male doesn’t like the female at all. She loses part of her breeding colors and her mother’s attitude in a “dose response” to the fry being not around her. In the end the fry prefers to be around dad. He also is not allowing fry to stay by her. I can’t tell what was exactly first. Fry starting to follow dad because he is a better signal for them. In which case I do not exactly get why as even they are different species they are both the parents. Why would one species be a better parent than the other if fry is sharing both parents’ genes? It could be. Or if mom was systematically relegated by dad’s aggression and pooling babies apart from her. Then as a consequence she lost her mother attitude. Nevertheless the result is the one you pointed out!

Could it be that part of the brood more “like her” is missing? I couldn’t tell if the number of fry is reduced as there are a bunch of them and hard to count. On the other hand they look great and grow faster than their neighbors the Borelli’s.

Now I am considering taking her out of the tank if aggression scales-up.

Cheers!

 

[Karin]

By the way, he is a great Dad!

 

[gerald]

Yes I think taking the female out would be the safest, if you have a good place to move her. The fry will probably follow anything that looks remotely like an Apisto and has the right colors and movements. I dont think they recognize or care about being different species at that age. In the 80's I had curviceps and dorsigera that spawned within a few days of each other in a 20-gal long with a screen divider. The fry would go back and forth through the screen and hang out with either set of parents. They fry seemed to like all being together in a big mixed-species school. The parents who had been abandoned would wait by the screen and flick their fins trying to lure the kids back.

 

[Karin]

Amazing... so I think the answer would be that he insisted on corner her out of the game and fry follow his more intense movements after all. Thanks for your input Gerald.

 

[Karin]

My glasses might not be working??? I think, I am not sure yet, that the borellii female is chewing and spitting a new set of wrigglers in the middle of the food I am pouring for the first clutch of fry of one month old?? Can this be?? When was she guarding eggs?

 

[Karin]

This is how these guys look up today. They are almost ten month...

 

[TCMontium]

I do not really know much about hybrids, but some people I know who bred hybrids claim that the offspring looks either like the mother, or he father (in terms of their species). This doesn't really sound logical to me considering mammal and reptile hybrids, but I don't know about hybridizing fish at all. In your situation, do they all look like A. baenschi or A. nijssenii? Or do they look like neither, just like a new type of fish?