# Astatotilapia latifasciata



## zwhorton (Jan 13, 2013)

Hi all,

Just joined today although I have been using the awesome posters here for advice for a while now.

I have a 3' 45 gallon tank that has been up for about a year with 1 male Aulonocara stuartgranti about 5", 1 Rusty male about 3" and a pair of Astatotilapia latifasciata about 3.75".

Part of the reason I got the Astatotilapia is their supposed prolific breeding and I wanted to set up a seperate species tank with them. Problem is I have had them for about 5 months with no breeding whatsoever. Im pretty sure the tank is not overstocked and easily large enough with lots of hiding areas including plants, rocks, driftwood. I know they are 1 male and 1 female, and the rusty and peacock are not bothering them. I do 15 gallon water changes weekly and have had the water checked out a few times at the LFS with no issues. All the fish are healthy and eat a combination of spirulina/krill based flake and thawed bloodworms (weekly-ish) voraciously.

Am I missing something. Any help is appreciated.

-Zach


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

Are you sure the second zebra obliquiden is a male? my breeding group of those guys give me TONS of fry, they breed every five weeks if i strip them at two weeks. The tank is a little on the small footprint size for those fish and it could be aggression related with the bigger fish.


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## zwhorton (Jan 13, 2013)

Im pretty certain on the sex, the "male" is slightly larger with bright red from chin to anal fin and yellow from the middle back between the bands. In contrast the "female" is the typical black bands with gold, no red or yellow coloration at all. I guess they could feel that there is sufficient area on the bottom, but there is no "lights on" aggression with the rusty or peacock.

I guess I could just move them to a 35 gallon bow front that I have in the garage and see what happens then.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

a picture might help, the males are as you describe, but the females in my group i would describe as more of an olive green with black bars. The males can turn their color on and off at will, and your smaller fish very well could be a sub dominant male hiding his color from both your dominant male as well as your bigger fish. The females color is very consistant all over their body, but the males have little coloration on the top 1/3 of their body and the majority of the red and yellow on the lower 2/3 of the body. Below is a picture of a female holding.


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## zwhorton (Jan 13, 2013)

there it is as long as the link works. let me know what you think.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

The picture quality isnt helping much, but the top third of that fish looks light, as well as it looks pretty yellow. It could be a male. I would not say one way or the other for sure off of that picture though.


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

Mine are prolific too, but I think she may just be too harassed from living with 3 male fish to hold eggs. I'd be looking for a couple more females. 
Mine have huge broods btw, up to 100, but they're smaller than Malawi fry.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

brinkles said:


> Mine are prolific too, but I think she may just be too harassed from living with 3 male fish to hold eggs. I'd be looking for a couple more females.
> Mine have huge broods btw, up to 100, but they're smaller than Malawi fry.


my broods are 30-50 but the females are only around 2.5" Either it is a male (his picture looks like possibly a female but not clear enough that im sure) or its just too much agression in WAY too small of a tank. These fish should breed like crazy in a healthy tank.


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## AlphaWild (Apr 9, 2009)

I was recently reading a variety of this species profiles on the web, and noted that one or more mentioned that the presence of competing males may be necessary to entice courtship. Also that they have a somewhat short breeding lifespan that begins at a small size. Don't know how factual any of that is, just that I ran across it. There is also the possibility that they could be prevented from successfully spawning by one of the other males in the tank?


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

AlphaWild said:


> I was recently reading a variety of this species profiles on the web, and noted that one or more mentioned that the presence of competing males may be necessary to entice courtship. Also that they have a somewhat short breeding lifespan that begins at a small size. Don't know how factual any of that is, just that I ran across it. There is also the possibility that they could be prevented from successfully spawning by one of the other males in the tank?


Of course every fish is a bit different and mine had been breeding prior, but i had my males split up for a week or two while i changed a tank over and only had a smaller tanks to keep them in so i separated the males to keep them from beating on each other. Two of my females bred with the dominant male during the time they were in the temporary tanks. Again, not sure if this would relate to fish that had never bred but they did breed with just one male in the tank. They do breed very young, i think mine started breeding at around 1.25", and had decent brood sizes even young. If it is a pair, my thought is that the bigger fish in the tank are making the male not want to show enough dominance to breed.


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