[hawkjm73]

Hello all!

I have two yellow labidos (labidochromis caeruleus)sp? in my tank. I hope they are a pair, but I am only sure the larger one is a male. The other is still to small to know. The male has been digging under the rocks today. My substrate is corse black sand, and the main rock is a chunck of white holey rock. He's been moving the sand one piece at a time. He's also been sticking all his fins way out when he sees the smaller one. Is this typical behavior for these guys? Is he digging himself a nest?

I know these are mouth breeders, but with the smaller one at only 2 inches, it seems awful soon to see spawning behaviors. The smaller one seems oblivious to the male's behavior.

 

[Lisachromis]

This is fairly typical caeruleus behaviour. I wouldn't count on the larger one being male for sure yet until they are larger. I hope you placed the rocks in your tank on the tank bottom and not just on top of some gravel. Cichlids are good diggers (as you've seen) and will accidently topple over rocks. Sometimes this can kill the fish or break the bottom glass.

 

[Osiris]

yea that is true i have lost one fish due to dang mbuna's diggin it squised it between rock and glass. They are too small to know, and the one guy is just showing off to show it's his territory. Wait til like 3" then vent them..or better yet get like 3 or 4 more.

 

[hawkjm73]

Yeah, the rocks are down on the bottom with the sand around them. The larger one is about four inches. (maybe 3.5, he doesn't like the ruler :roll: ) He developes the black "moustache" at times, which is what led me to belive he is male. He had it in the lfs tank, lost it upon reaching my tank, regained it after a couple of weeks, then lost it again when I switched out most of the decor, including going from gravel to sand.

 

[scuba_steve]

you can always vent your larger fish, here is an article with beautiful pics of venting a yellow lab, also has links to some great venting articles
http://www.malawimayhem.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20110

 

[davoz01]

Malawi cichlids breed small so it is likely that the would spawn at 1.5 in. I've seen it done. But its likely the larger fish establishing his territory. If you see extended fins followed by the fish turning sideways to the other fish and shimming and shaking thats spawing behavior.

 

[Osiris]

lol i thought it was fish seizure when i first saw a male do it! was like umm..honey i think he's sick

 

[davoz01]

Its really impressive in other mbuna. Labs don't change much in coloration but I used to have a blue zebra that went from sky blue to near white with black baring when he was spawning.

 

[joe kool]

"almost" all africans ... as the common hobbyist finds in your LFS anyways ... exhibit this type behavior, especially male to female or dominate male to sub-dominate male. rarely but sometimes the dominate female can be seen "displaying" to the sub-dominate females but this, if it ever happens in your tank, will be when the sub-dominate female is getting close to laying.

usually the female(s) will ignore the male until they (the female) are heavy with eggs ready to lay "kinda in heat I guess you could say" then they will become very interested in the males displaying and they'll spawn. BUT if the male gets overzealous when the female isn't "in heat" she'll get stressed and a lot of times pretty beat up, that's why it's advisable to have multiple females with "most" africans and a few "target" fish for the male to keep busy kinda picking on ... I like giant danios. they are big enough and fast enough not to get eaten most times depending on the size of your africans so they really don't get all that stressed AND you have to watch them sometimes too cause every now and again you'll get a danio with an attitude and he'll actually pick back at the africans :shock: (that's why I stopped using rainbows .. too aggressive :lol: )

the aggressive danios usually end up in the frontosa tank so they keep in line in there ... "no picking on the big guy .. he'll bite your head off" .. (Fronts will actually rarely eat a fish the size of a giant danio)

but "most likely" you have a male in the bigger on because the females rarely have that much black on them and hardly ever get the tell, tell "mustache" you referred to like the males will. The black line in the dorsal fin isn't nearly as pronounced in the females either

Yea I know there are a lot of rarelys and hardly evers, and almost always ... BUT if I didn't "somebody" would get on here telling me you and everybody else that I was F.O.S. "cause their fish did ... so-and-so" and there’s always an exception to the rule ... or did you not pay attention in english :lol:

hope I was helpful

OH YEA ... scuba steve .. your link is dead BUT if you do a search on www.malawimayhem.com for venting cichlids several good threads do come up.

Peace :mrgreen: