[n9inchnails]

my female maingano (Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos) has had less than 1 week to recover the last 3 times she has mated and was getting extremely thin and weak, but than about a week and a half atfter she started holding, i noticed she was eating ferociously, and wasn't holding anymore, i assumed she spat the eggs out due to extreme hunger, but then i noticed the male was holding the eggs, A MALE HOLDING EGGS! i have never read or heard of a male holding the eggs for his hungry, exhausted female and was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this behavior as well.

p.s. he's been holding for 3 days now

 

[Darkside]

Pictures?

 

[n9inchnails]

I have pictures but i don't know how to post them, can anyone help?

 

[CICHLUDED]

A MALE HOLDING EGGS! i have never read or heard of a male holding the eggs for his hungry, exhausted female and was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this behavior as well.

Most likely your cyaneorhabdos are both female....

This link has the info for posting pictures:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... hp?t=21085

.

 

[Dave]

I have seen females hold another female's eggs. All the cases of males holding eggs from Malawi have all turned out to be misidentification.

 

[CichlidWhisperer]

Hmmm... are you sure the previous batches have been pure breeds? And do you have only two in there? If the answer to both is yes, one must be a male and one must be a female...

 

[Darkside]

Who knows you could be a first! Pictures! opcorn:

 

[n9inchnails]

I definitely have 1 male and 1 female, i only have 2 mainganos one has the DISTINCT COLOURATION OF A MALE. they have also successfully mated at least 5 times, so unless you beleive 2 females can successfully mate one is definitely a male

thanks to CHICLUDED i am currently working on uploading pictures and i should have them uploaded by the end of the day

 

[n9inchnails]

These are Pics of the female with her distictive white throat and belly, also her stomach is sunken in from 3 months of almost no food due to excessive mating

These are pics of the male holding, notice the dark throat and belly indicating a male, no female maingano has a dark throat or belly, they are signs of a sexually active, or dominant male

 

[Dave]

Need to see the vents. You have plenty of fish in there that could have been the father in the past.

 

[n9inchnails]

this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.

 

[CICHLUDED]

this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.

:lol: :lol:

Sorry to laugh, but Mbuna will mate with whatever is available....even a Hap...

I think you need to vent your Maingano...

.

 

[n9inchnails]

show me an article or report written by an actual doctor of biology that states this melonochromis species will mate with fish that do not have a horizontal bar, especially seeing how it has been scientifically proven that the horizontal bar is how this fish identifies fish of the same species. what you are implying is as plauseable as a tiger mating with a house cat.

 

[n9inchnails]

this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.

:lol: :lol:

Sorry to laugh, but Mbuna will mate with whatever is available....even a Hap...

I think you need to vent your Maingano...

.

WHAT!!! Are you INSANE??? Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna? Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do you have any understanding of animal behavior or genetics, are you part of the +50% of your population that doesn't even beleive in evolution?

 

[Gibbs]

I'm sorry to say mate, but the chance of your maingano breeding with an albino or Socolofi are fairly high.
I know there is no real way of telling a maingano's sex unless you actually vent this fish, but i have a fair bit of experience with this fish through close friends and have witnessed spawning behaviour, and if i were to buy the fish in question i would be buying the fish thinking it was a female. I no i will be hated on for this but im about 90% sure that the fish in question is a female

 

[Gibbs]

I'm sorry to say mate, but the chance of your maingano breeding with an albino or Socolofi are fairly high.
I know there is no real way of telling a maingano's sex unless you actually vent this fish, but i have a fair bit of experience with this fish through close friends and have witnessed spawning behaviour, and if i were to buy the fish in question i would be buying the fish thinking it was a female. I no i will be hated on for this but im about 90% sure that the fish in question is a female judging by it's colour pattern and lack of egg spots.
I know guys it's no way of telling but in my experiance that is a female

 

[cater20155]

WHAT!!! Are you INSANE??? Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna? Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do you have any understanding of animal behavior or genetics, are you part of the +50% of your population that doesn't even beleive in evolution?

In reality, these fish may not be far enough removed genetically to prohibit interbreeding. To examine the possibilities, of the species in question, of crossbreeding a complete genome analysis would have to be done for both species, comparing many parts of chromosomes, gene locations, etc (this can get very complicated). Also, behavioral differences do prevent crossbreeding to an extent in the wild, but if the species are still close enough to genetically allow for crossbreeding, accidents will and do happen. Within an aquarium, these different species are kept very close and 2 different species could crossbreed on just a chance that the sperm of one species finds the egg of the next species. My knowledge on the cichlid genome is limited, so i can not either way if they can or can not, but there may be possibilities for crossbreeding.

 

[Dragonkeeper]

Agree with the cross breed theory. The fish you hold in your hand is, by my estimation a female. I can make this educated guess as I have one male and 4 females in a species specific tank currently breeding regularly for me.

In the aquarium interbreeding is quite common even among completely different genuses (sp) of fish.

Just my .02

Keeper

 

[CICHLUDED]

WHAT!!! Are you INSANE???

Somewhat…

Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna?

Give the right circumstances, YES…

Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

I said the same thing when you wrote this…
… “this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fishâ€

 

[iceblue]

N9inchnails.

Careful of some of the sweeping statements your making. I have a female socolofi that has bred with my Kenyi, greshaki, OB red zebra and my "torpedo shaped, vertically striped" auratus. When it comes to a species of M/F Mbuna with similar appearance you can't always use the small differences as a true indicator of differential sexing. The female socolofi I have was bought because I thought it was a male. It was of good size and color, very aggressive and had many eggspots with clear deliniations and was in a tank with females that were smaller, slightly different color with diffused eggspots. Much to my suprise a few months later "he" was holding.

I have a feeling you have two female Maingano that have mated with something else in your tank because they didn't have a male of thier own species around. The only sure way to tell is to vent them.