# cichlid breeding by itself



## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

PLEASE read the whole thing. i know it is lengthy, but i am desperate!!!!! history: i bought 2 cichlids about 8 years ago. 7 yrs ago cichlid 1 killed cichlid 2. chichlid 1 was left ALONE in the tank for OVER A YEAR (something most people cannot grasp). SO the freaky part is that in April of 2005 this lone cichlid started having babies. Freaked out as i was, i started consulting web forums, university professors, pet store specialistsâ€¦ etc but no one could tell me why she (SHE???) was having babies. time passedâ€¦ iâ€™d get rid of a â€œlitterâ€


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

A single fish cannot have babies on it's own. They can lay eggs, guard them, or carry them (depending on the species), but cannot actually have babies.


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## xalow (May 10, 2007)

Is it at all possible that the babies were hiding from when you had two fish? This is most likely what happened.

Less likely is you have witnessed a speies of fish capable of parthenogenesis which is the technical term for when a female reproduces on her own. What species of fish is this? This has all ready been documented by scientist in many species of sharks and certain livebearers like mollies, but I do not think it has been described as happening with cichlids.

There is certainly nothing


> mary magdolene


 about your fish.


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## Dave (Feb 9, 2003)

That is one big fish tale you got there. Not one, but two fish exhibiting parthanogensis. To bad you don't know the Genus species of this mysterious fish.


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## gomezaddams (Dec 2, 2005)

Sounds like a fish tale to me.Can we at least see a photo of the mystery cichlid?


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## srook23 (Feb 21, 2009)

Immaculate conception... :dancing:


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Dave said:


> That is one big fish tale you got there. Not one, but two fish exhibiting parthanogensis. To bad you don't know the Genus species of this mysterious fish.


The daughter fish of the original would be likely to exhibit parthenogenesis as well (assuming parthenogenesis occurred).


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## gmaschke (Aug 23, 2008)

Some fish species after breeding with a male once can store the sperm for several spawns. I am not sure if cichlids are capable of this though. Although I am not sure that can't either.

We'll leave this for the experts to analyze.


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## Dave (Feb 9, 2003)

Darkside said:


> Dave said:
> 
> 
> > That is one big fish tale you got there. Not one, but two fish exhibiting parthanogensis. To bad you don't know the Genus species of this mysterious fish.
> ...


Unless this mystery fish has this ability naturally, you have no way of knowing what the offspring would be able to do. If this fish truly was a cichlid, then I doubt either occurred.


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## Dakuan (Apr 16, 2009)

JESUS IS A FISH!


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## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

i looked it up online. it is in the zebra cichlid family. i swear i am not joking about this fish. The original mama used to keep her babies in her mouth until they were to big- then heard them like a sheep dog under a rock. she did this a few times for 3 years. the fish (daughter) i have in the tank now has been by herself since july last year. we count 4 live babies- about 1/4 inch still translucent. All fish have always been clones of the mama- orange. I got the original fish at walmart for $4 several years ago. I'd love some answers- people either think i'm full of --- or give the stored sperm explanation. this is getting a little frustrating though!!! anyone want a fish (or 5?)


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Mbuna don't store sperm... they are mouthbrooders.

Some livebearers can... not cichlids.

Cichlids cannot reproduce asexually.


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## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

i've tried to upload a picture. it was too large. i can email a picture to anyone who may be able to identify the fish


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Well, if you're sure that parthenogenesis is occurring, where the mom is asexually reproducing identical female offspring, then it may be time to get it looked at by a specialist. Since you've had several generations previously, were they all female? Are these new fish all female? I know that there have been accounts of parthenogenesis in other bony fish, I'm not sure about cichlids, but stranger things have happened.


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## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

when the fish "grow up" they have all always stayed orange. i really do not know much about the species, but it is my understanding that the males will turn blue as they age (?). I should have had the mother disected when she died to solve my mystery. I did consult UNC-Wilmington Marine Biology dept and got nothing more than a "huh.... interesting." and the old stored spem explanation- which i don't think is viable in this case of years of reproduction and two generation.


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Here are the images, looks like a standard red zebra to me.





One more question, have all these fish had identical egg spots and do you have a picture of the original mother (the one that died)?


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## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

are egg spots the spots on the lower fin? if so, the mother had them. i do not recall if the other babies had the egg spots. most of them i got rid of before they matured (when they were about an inch long i gave them away). i did keep about 10 or so fish over the years , and 3 survived and lived in the tank with the mother until she died. then "Patrick" (the fish above) killed her siblings and has been solo ever since. The other 2 siblings were only 2 and 3 inches long when she killed them. i don't remember if they had spots


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## Dave (Feb 9, 2003)

Was this the only fish in the tank, or the only fish of its species in the tank? Were there any "juveniles" in the tank with this fish?


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

how can one be desperate after 8 years of happily living with an issue?

and you never thought to ask yourself why the daughter had stopped eating for a few weeks and the food just sat and rotted in the tank?

and you are just going to "give away to a fish shop" an animal that is a minor miracle? No get rich schemes via ebay?

opcorn:


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## Mamasbaby110 (Jun 8, 2009)

no other fish were in the tank. just the one. I did not realize that this fish had the capability that it's mother had- since she hadn't performed it before now. my kids feed this fish and did not mention to me she had stopped eating. besides that... i can admit that i don't take very good care of the tank, and (in the mother's case) it seemed like the dirtier the tank the more babies she would have... then i'd be afraid to do a pertial for fear of sucking up the young ones. i'd be willing to donate her to a college or something if i could get an answer. as long as they name the new species of self reproducing fish after me


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Mamasbaby110 said:


> i'd be willing to donate her to a college or something if i could get an answer. as long as they name the new species of self reproducing fish after me


That won't be happening unless your name is Esther... :lol:


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## Turtle lover (8 mo ago)

Mamasbaby110 said:


> PLEASE read the whole thing. i know it is lengthy, but i am desperate!!!!! history: i bought 2 cichlids about 8 years ago. 7 yrs ago cichlid 1 killed cichlid 2. chichlid 1 was left ALONE in the tank for OVER A YEAR (something most people cannot grasp). SO the freaky part is that in April of 2005 this lone cichlid started having babies. Freaked out as i was, i started consulting web forums, university professors, pet store specialistsâ€¦ etc but no one could tell me why she (SHE???) was having babies. time passedâ€¦ iâ€™d get rid of a â€œlitterâ€


SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME, except my African cichlids babies looked like a mix of the old dead fish and the momma fish…had to have hid the eggs I guess for a long amount of time, already fertilized


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

African mouthbrooding females will lay eggs alone (no male in the tank), and hold them for up to 7 days without them being fertilized. But at that point, unless they are fertilized the eggs die. The mom either spits them or swallows them.


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## Turtle lover (8 mo ago)

DJRansome said:


> African mouthbrooding females will lay eggs alone (no male in the tank), and hold them for up to 7 days without them being fertilized. But at that point, unless they are fertilized the eggs die. The mom either spits them or swallows them.


I honestly don’t know what to say, I really have no way of proving it to you unless you want me to show pictures of the babies and the one cichlid…it has been alone (besides a turtle being in the tank) for 6 months and has now had 5 babies. The cichlid parent is orange and the old fish I had in the tank 6 months ago was purple (it was eaten by the turtle). 2 of thebabies are purple and 3 are orange. Very odd. The fish had a group of 4 at one time, and now 3 weeks later had one more.


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## sir_keith (Oct 30, 2018)

Yeah, right. I feel guilty even posting here, as the only thing this thread deserves is to die a natural death. Such silliness on what is (mostly) a serious forum.


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## Turtle lover (8 mo ago)

sir_keith said:


> Yeah, right. I feel guilty even posting here, as the only thing this thread deserves is to die a natural death. Such silliness on what is (mostly) a serious forum.


What do you want me to say to you??? I don’t know how to prove that I’m not lying. I checked this morning and apparently it wasn’t even 1 more… it was 5 more babies… meaning I now have 9 baby fish. With only one fish in the tank. How the heck is that possible.


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## Aussieman57 (Dec 18, 2021)

Turtle lover said:


> What do you want me to say to you??? I don’t know how to prove that I’m not lying. I checked this morning and apparently it wasn’t even 1 more… it was 5 more babies… meaning I now have 9 baby fish. With only one fish in the tank. How the heck is that possible.


It's called trolling & BS.


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## Turtle lover (8 mo ago)

I have no reason to lie about fish lol, I was just trying to get an answer… is it possible the eggs were around since the other fish was alive months back?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

What you are describing should not be possible. I don't think there is an answer, it will have to remain a mystery. The eggs will die in 7 days or so if not fertilized. The sperm is picked up by the mother as she circles with the male during mating...it does not remain viable in the tank.


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## sir_keith (Oct 30, 2018)

I'm a biologist, and I'm telling you flat-out that what you have described is not possible. Period. Enough of this nonsense.


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## sir_keith (Oct 30, 2018)

Turtle lover said:


> …is it possible the eggs were around since the other fish was alive months back?...


No, it is not, but it is possible the fry were around all that time, and you simply did not notice them. Finito.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

Actually, there have been several reports of isolated male Mbuna suddenly producing eggs and young. One of these was reported over at Cichlidae forum several years ago and verified. We already knew about a male _Caquetaia spectabilis_ (Ginny Eckstein's Tootsie) that spawned and produced viable young in isolation. The incident was quite famous, and verified by Dr. Paul Loiselle. I've also seen a report from a hobbyist in Australia of a Red Devil that started producing viable young in isolation. Both of these predate the internet. 

Self fertilizing hermaphrodites are a known phenomena, but very rare and unpredictable in Cichlids. Isolation seems to be a key element in their existence. It can be quite confusing to someone unfamiliar with the history.


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## Aussieman57 (Dec 18, 2021)

And not one single photo provided by the OP to back up the story. Hmmm....


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## sir_keith (Oct 30, 2018)

Mr Chromedome said:


> Actually, there have been several reports of isolated male Mbuna suddenly producing eggs and young. One of these was reported over at Cichlidae forum several years ago and verified. We already knew about a male _Caquetaia spectabilis_ (Ginny Eckstein's Tootsie) that spawned and produced viable young in isolation. The incident was quite famous, and verified by Dr. Paul Loiselle. I've also seen a report from a hobbyist in Australia of a Red Devil that started producing viable young in isolation. Both of these predate the internet.
> 
> Self fertilizing hermaphrodites are a known phenomena, but very rare and unpredictable in Cichlids. Isolation seems to be a key element in their existence. It can be quite confusing to someone unfamiliar with the history.


I agree with you: self-fertilizing hermaphrodites are known to exist in diverse phyla in nature, but are exceedingly rare in Cichlids. As such, any report of such an occurrence in captivity must be informed by a healthy degree of skepticism.

Sadovy and Liu published a comprehensive review entitled '_Functional hermaphroditism in teleosts_' [Fish & Fisheries *9*: 1-43 (2008)] in which they applied a clearly defined set of diagnostic criteria for functional hermaphroditism in their reexamination of more than 400 primary references in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. They concluded that functional hermaphroditism exists in more than 20 teleost families distributed amongst 7 different orders, although expression was highly variable.

In their report Sadovy and Liu listed _Cichlidae_ as 1 of 21 families in which hermaphroditism had been proposed, but not confirmed (as of 2008). This included presumptive examples in the genera _Cichlasoma_ (before its revision), _Crenicara_, and _Pseudotropheus._ It would be of interest if you could provide primary references published since that time that might provide further information on this topic.

As a life-long hobbyist, I do not question the utility of observations made by serious aquarists concerning the behaviours of their fishes in captivity. However, these kinds of anecdotal observations serve only as starting points for rigorous examination. In this particular instance, I remain to be convinced that other, more likely explanations have been excluded.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

As I stated, Tootsie occurred at least a decade before the internet became generally available, I believe in the 1980s. Young from these spawns were distributed, and all grew up normal. Dr. Paul Loiselle observed the fish spawning, and the subsequent young from it. I suspect that a study done in 2007-2008 might not have heard of it if they were not hobbyists as well as researchers. I've seen it happen before, something that occurred in the hobby world goes unknown and unnoticed by the "real" scientists. It's also not uncommon for today's technologically limited generations to be totally unaware that the world existed prior to the internet. While my knowledge of this incident comes from personally knowing both Ginny Eckstein and Dr. Loiselle, I'm sure something must have been mentioned in the Buntbarsche Bulletin. Everybody in the ACA knew about it.

As for the _Pseudotropheus_, you can search for it on Cichlid Room Companion as easily as I can. The thread discussing this also mentioned other reports of Mbuna that had fry spontaneously popping up after years in isolation. I believe it was under Cichlid Behavior subforum.

BTW, photos don't prove anything either, really. I had someone on a general forum not too long ago who claimed his Oscar bred with his _Aulonocara_. He posted pictures of the fry, which were clearly _Aulonocara_. He also posted a photo of the tank, which only contained two large Cichlids, an Oscar and an _Aulonocara_. So the choices were, a hybrid of these two fish that showed no hybrid characteristics in the young, or a self fertilizing hermaphrodite. Having seen anecdotal reports on CRC of Malawian Cichlids in isolation producing young, I considered the latter more likely.

Sex change in _Crenicara _is a proven condition. Dominant male dies, senior female changes and takes over. Not sure how your researchers missed that one, either. 

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies."


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## sir_keith (Oct 30, 2018)

Sex changes are only tangentially related to functional hermaphroditism, so 'my' researchers would consider this a separate phenomenon, irrelevant to their thesis, and not worth mention.

If you look through the reference list in the article by Sadovy and Liu you will discover that a significant fraction of the literature cited was published prior to the general availability of the internet, so to claim that this knowledge base has been overlooked is incorrect.

As I stated- '_I do not question the utility of observations made by serious aquarists concerning the behaviours of their fishes in captivity. However, these kinds of anecdotal observations serve only as starting points for rigorous examination. In this particular instance, I remain to be convinced that other, more likely explanations have been excluded.'_

If your point is that functional hermaphroditism can occur (rarely) in cichlid fishes in captivity, I agree. If your point is that it has been demonstrated in this hobbyist's aquarium, I am not convinced. Irrespective of how many things exist on heaven and earth, Occam's razor still applies, particularly in instances where documentation is suspect or nonexistent, as is the case in this thread.


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## marcomurabia (6 mo ago)

Mamasbaby110 said:


> Showbox jiofi.local.html tplinklogin​PLEASE read the whole thing. i know it is lengthy, but i am desperate!!!!! history: i bought 2 cichlids about 8 years ago. 7 yrs ago cichlid 1 killed cichlid 2. chichlid 1 was left ALONE in the tank for OVER A YEAR (something most people cannot grasp). SO the freaky part is that in April of 2005 this lone cichlid started having babies. Freaked out as i was, i started consulting web forums, university professors, pet store specialistsâ€¦ etc but no one could tell me why she (SHE???) was having babies. time passedâ€¦ iâ€™d get rid of a â€œlitterâ€


To bad you don't know the Genus species of this mysterious fish.
​


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## Azedenkae (Apr 19, 2012)

I was curious so I did a quick google scholar search, and lo and behold: Hybridization generates a hopeful monster: a hermaphroditic selfing cichlid | Royal Society Open Science.

In the study, after intrageneric hybridization they obtained an intersex cichlid that spawned all on its own. Cool.


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