If you recall my post a few days ago on the excitement of cichlid spawning behavior, it included the above photo of my recently set up 33g long tank. In that tank are six ‘Lamprologus’ ocellatus and three Julidochromis dickfeldi.
One of the absolute greatest joys of cichlid keeping is witnessing spawning behavior. Because I have new fish from an order I placed several months ago, I have been anxiously awaiting some pairings and subsequent spawning. All the fish I received were older juveniles or sub-adults, so I knew that pairing up would begin in a few months. You can read about the new fish in this post from back in May.
A little over a year ago I picked up a 30g rimless tank (called Symbolic) by Mr. Aqua. At that time, I had intended to make it a species-only shellie tank of ‘Lamprologus’ ocellatus “gold”. I got the tank set up, cycled it with some existing media, and was off to the races. But as the saying goes, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” which is exactly what happened. My plan didn’t pan out for a variety of reasons.