Leleupis breeding

I have about 12 yellow leleupis 5 females that looks like they are carrying eggs. 3 females are keeping the males away from the cave entrances. It seems that most areas have been cleaned by the females. I had fry once but I think the female was immature. Most of my fish it is the first time they are spawning.

Sweet! Any shots?

Congrats and good luck. I have a pair that are constantly spawning; they work really well together.

does the male assist in raising the young. Females are constantly keeping the male away from the caves.

With my pair, yes the male does help out. He guards the nest area constantly while she remains with the eggs/hatchlings. After the eggs have hatched, I have seen the male go into the nest from time to time as well.

Today I saw fry hatching

Awesome!

Fry only lasted for 5 days did not know what went wrong. I was in bed with flu for 3 days. I gave away my 2 big males so that the younger males could get a chance to spawn with the females. These 2 big males harrassed the other younger males. What I had observed with the pair that had bred the male was constantly inside the nest with the female and was help guarding the front entrance, the bigger male stayed at the entrance and not allowing the younger male to leave or enter the shell. They had used and ablone shell that I had turned upside down and drilled a small opening for them to enter. The fry started becoming free swimming and started feeding them by inserting a syringe into the opening of the shell. This female had spawned before inside the same shell, probably the other leleupis might have entered the shell while she was feeding.

I had re-decorated my tank with more ceramic plant pots and removed the shell, I noticed that she is circling in the area. The younger male is patrolling this area, so she might be spawning soon. While this older male was patrolling this area she had constantly to flee to get inside this nest. I will be observing her again. There is more harmony inside the tank since removing these 2 old chaps.

Good luck with the breeding now that the big males are gone. Even with my pair as the only fish in the tank, I have had a couple of spawns mysteriously disappear. They are normally great parents and have raised a few successful broods, so I figured they must have had a good reason for disposing of those fry.

Good luck Keith and hope to see some pics of the fish soon, if possible!

I had added more ceramic pot plants into the tank, but I first silicone the base of the pot plant to the pot. Since the old males are go there is more harmony amongst the leleupis. Most of these pot plants have been taken up the leleupis so hopefully there might be fry soon.

4 females are either sitting on a batch of eggs or they have hatched

Congrats again. I hope you have better luck this time. Are these leleupi in that really big tank you have?

Yes, they are in my very big tank. I sold a few of my fish 4 x frontosas; 2 big male leleupis; 1 compressicep; 2 tretocephalus and 1 angle. Since removing them the tank looks bare as most of my fish are still juveniles. My juliedochromis species are all in spawning mode. I set-up a nursery tank, female leleupi does not want to leave the pot plant, but I will have to force out so that I can save some fry. I also notice that the other females eggs are no longer hanging so that means the eggs are busy hatching. When I shoned a tourch through the opening I can see her busy cleaning out in the dark corner. 2 other females have also remained inside their pot plant for some time so there might be fry or eggs.

This weekend I set-up a nursey tank, I rather remove the fry before they become someones dinner. 2 of the pots had eggs that have just hatched some fry were free swimming the others had their yolk sacs. In the nursery tank I have a sponge filter with an air stone. The pot had quite a large batch of fry while the other small.

The other 2 pots are occupied by females but no sign of eggs.