Everything a hobbyist needs to know about successfully breeding African cichlid species, known as mouth brooders

Types of Mouth Brooder Cichlids

Most mouth brooder cichlids come from Lake Malawi, but there are some found in Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. Within the genre of mouth brooders, there are two different ways the eggs are fertilized and gestated.

• Larvophile (delayed mouth-brooders) lay their eggs on the bottom gravel. The male fertilizes the eggs and the mother picks up the babies in her mouth after they are hatched. Members of this family are the Gymnogeophagus and Satanopercaspecies

• Ovophile (immediate mouth-brooders) deposit their eggs on the gravel but the female picks them up right away and has them fertilized while holding them in her mouth. This would include the Pseudotropheus, Aulonocara and Labidochromis species.

This article describes the methodology for immediate mouth brooders.

Spawning of Mouth Brooder Cichlids

The spawning routine starts with fin flaring and lip locking between the male and female. This is their way of flirting and finding the right mate. The male cichlid, if he has found the female to his liking, will sneak off and dig a spawning pit in the gravel at the bottom of the tank

The male will start flaring his fins and swimming closely to the female in order to excite and entice the female. Then the male and female will start swimming in circles with the male taking the lead over to the spawning pit.

As they are swimming around in circles above the spawning pit, the female drops her eggs in the pit. Then she immediately goes back and picks up the eggs in her mouth. The male has egg spots on his anal fin that makes the female think there are eggs she has missed. She approaches the male tries to pick the egg spots off the anal fin.

At this moment, the male releases sperm into the female’s mouth, thus fertilizing the eggs. The female holds the fertilized eggs in her mouth until the gestational period is over. Depending on the species, gestation periods can range from 18 to 25 days.

You can tell the female is pregnant because she will develop a bruise on the throat due to the babies inside her mouth growing bigger. She will also stop eating until the eggs are hatched. This requires you to pay close attention to the female fish in your tank.

Hatching Cichlid Fry

You must have a smaller tank in order to isolate the pregnant female. Place the mother in this solitary tank two weeks after discovering she is pregnant. This will allow a lead time of 4 to 7 days before the eggs are hatched.

Keep looking in the smaller tank and see if you can detect the babies swimming around. If you cannot see any babies at first, don’t worry. Try observing the tank in the middle of the night by using a low level light.

Be sure not to startle the mother because she will take every baby back into her mouth until she thinks that the danger has passed.

Care of Cichlid Mother and Babies

Do not leave the mother in with the babies for any longer than 4 days. She will start to eat the babies, thinking this is her food source. Don’t worry about the babies eating; they are very capable of eating fish food as soon as they are let out of the mother’s mouth.

In order to be humane, feed the female well before putting her back into the community tank. Females can starve to death if they have successive pregnancies. Having an additional small tank for the mother’s recuperation is a good idea.

Do not put the babies into a community tank until they are at least 3 to 4 inches long. Depending on the number of babies, you may need to put them in a larger tank as they continue to grow.

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