# Is she holding?



## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

I'm not even positive its a "she". She's small.. 2.5 inches? I could swear I saw her pick at food this evening. She's a pretty elusive fish, for some reason her mouth looks... different. I have "holding" on the brain (waiting to see my first fish ever hold) so I'm sure if I looked at the catfish long enough, Id think it was holding too. Anyway... experts? just my imagination?


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## brandon O (Oct 23, 2010)

kinda looks like it

this is what mine looked like


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Looks like it, but if she's actively eating or picking at rocks or sifting sand, then probably not.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

I did see her eat a pellet. Even if she is holding, I doubt she'd go full term.... shes tiny compared to the others and Id bet this is her first time. Ill pay closer attention to see if she is "chewing". I dont know what the eggs look like in her mouth, I havent seen inside... just the bulge. Thanks


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

So.... question.

Im pretty convinced she was holding. Last evening, I caught her hiding in the back middle of the tank. When I saw her, she looked like she had black marbles in her jaw. They were dark and easy to see through her skin since she's white.

About 5 minutes later, she comes eaglerly swimming from behind the rock again and the black marbles are gone.

Im assuming these were eggs. Were they unfertilized or did she just spit them/eat them? Im reading that eggs ready to hatch are transluscent, so when they are dark colored, are they just new eggs? I really didnt expect her to hold to term, she truly is a tiny fish. I just want to get it straight in my head for the next time.... if they were dark was she far along or just newly holding?


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## kenko (Jan 19, 2012)

Actually eggs will not go dark. Generally they are a yellow-ish white when healthy (like a light colored brown chicken egg), and turn to white when bad.

Could she have been chewing on gravel? Maybe in the process of moving gravel? 
Maybe the eggs just gave the impression of being dark in her mouth?


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## newforestrob (Feb 1, 2010)

I would say she was definately holding,and she had free swimming fry,that she spat out,the darkness you saw were the little fry eyes, etc.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

I dunno. Im confused.

I DO have black sand, but she's not one of the big sand movers, so I'm inclined to believe it wasnt the sand (plus the bulge was pretty pronounced, she would have had to have a mouthful).

Im also not inclined to believe they were free swimmers. But the bulge WAS a very one. I just dont think a) she held for an entire month ~ even tho I cant be sure and b) this has to be her first time holding and I didnt think they would do full term first time holding.

If it has to be one of the two, I'll be scouring the tank this evening looking for a free swimmer. Thanks, everyone!


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## ChoxRox (Sep 8, 2011)

kenko said:


> Actually eggs will not go dark. Generally they are a yellow-ish white when healthy (like a light colored brown chicken egg), and turn to white when bad.
> 
> Could she have been chewing on gravel? Maybe in the process of moving gravel?
> Maybe the eggs just gave the impression of being dark in her mouth?


The eggs aren't dark, but the fry that come from them are.

Sometimes when i look at the jaw of a holding female I can see little black dots (their eyes), could that be what you saw?


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

I dunno. The black I saw was through her skin, not through an open mouth.

What I know: 
a) I definitely saw black... as she was facing me, there was black on each "cheek". Looked bigger than what I would assume fry eyes to be, unless there were multiple fry in her mouth thus enlarging the dark color
b) Her mouth was definitely distorted one minute and when she came out from the back of the tank, the distortion AND the black were gone. (the fish now know me as dinner... anytime I approach the tank at any angle, they swim right up to the glass where I am. Im thinking she could have seen me coming, spit whatever was in her mouth out thinking it was dinnertime). Whatever was in her mouth when she rounded that rock to begin with was definitely gone when she came back to the front.

what I dont know:
a) The last time I saw her eat. She's not one of the ones I watch. I have some good size Cobalt Zebras and alot of nice size Rustys... I always watch them first for non-eating females. She's tiny compared to the others, she was the last one Id assume would hold.
b) that the size of the dark color could have been eyes. If it were eyes, it was alot of them. 
c) That she's even female. *** never seen cichlids spawn, wouldnt know if she has, but never see any out of the ordinary behavior from her or her male counterparts. all they do is swim... they dont even chase each other.

I'm sure I'll never know for sure unless I find an actual live fry (which is unlikely between my cichlids and my catfish). Next time she gets that black, Ill try to get better pictures.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

She probably spit. From what I've seen in light colored mbuna, the buccal cavity darkens as the fry develop, like in the yellow lab pics below. Sorry about the overexposure


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## kenko (Jan 19, 2012)

Oh man, I had to throw on some sunglasses with that overexposed top picture. What is it, like a half-stop? The bottom one, if anything, looks a tad underexposed.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Yeah, sorry you had to be subjected to that. :roll:


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## kenko (Jan 19, 2012)

:lol: 
(I can tell you are really digging that macro too...) :thumb:


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

That is EXACTLY what I saw, GTZ. Exactly. So.... mystery solved. She spit! Once again, thanks!

When they're black like that, how far along is/was she? Did she just start holding or had she been for a while?

I always do a head count to make sure none are missing.... you can bet your tail that I'm now doing a "eat count" daily too.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

lilcountrygal said:


> When they're black like that, how far along is/was she? Did she just start holding or had she been for a while?


Hard to say really. In my experience, they get darker around 12-15 days, from then on they look pretty much the same, maybe a smaller bulge as the egg sacs disappear.


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## Pizzle (May 24, 2011)

Looks to me like the OP's fish was holding. Totally different species, but I have a Cyprichromis leptosoma (its a Tanganyikan cichlid) holding a big mouthful but she was still able to take a 1MM pellet of NLS. Every night for the past two weeks I come home and look at the fish and I say, "still holding." I'm gonna let her spit in the display tank and hope for the best. The only other species in there are Lamprologus multifasciatus.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

OK. I hate to dredge this thread back up again. I'm still waiting to confirm my first holding fish. I swear this one wants to drive me insane. This is the third time she has looked like this since I started this thread. I think this is the best pic I've been able to get showing what I see. Yesterday, she looked normal. Today... this.

I swear she holds for one day... three days later, she holds again. the day after I spot her, nothing... three days later, another mouthful. Am i going blind or is she holding?


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

Many of mine will hold kibble briefly after they're fed!


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

lol, looks like she's holding, and far along too, going by how dark her buccal cavity looks, could be the pic tho.
Video?


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

That's why I'm saying she may hold kibble in her buccal cavity. It's dark, like the fry are hatched, but she "spawns" every couple days, then they're gone the next.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

What's kibble? food? I feed the NLS which are pinkish... would it still cause the black buccal cavity?

I swear after I took the picture, came to the computer to load it and type, went back in the living room, its gone again. She spit, whatever.

I'm starting to think she swims with a mouthful of sand (i have black sand?). I dunno. It doesnt take a month for her to look like that.... in four days, I'll have another picture of her looking that same way.

I cant for the life of me figure out what is in that fish's mouth.


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## kenko (Jan 19, 2012)

lilcountrygal said:


> I'm starting to think she swims with a mouthful of sand (i have black sand?).


Isn't that what I said some time back? 

If it's bugging you this much, why not just catch her with mouth full and see what's in there? (Assuming you just can't look into the mouth, or even use food to bait to draw her to the glass.) It's not in the 125, so it shouldn't be that tough (relatively) and you can sleep better knowing what is hiding in there...


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