# could this acei be holding?



## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

she's not eating and kind of hiding in the rocks most of the time chasing the others away. 
and if so, how long usually till she spits? thanks for your input...


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## ashilli48 (May 14, 2006)

Looks that way. Does she act likes she hungry during feeding time, rushing up to the food but not eating? I've seen mine do that. Not necessarily a typical characteristic, but something I have seen.

I've had Mbunas hold for around 21 days. Some of my yellow labs are serious about it and want to hold onto some of their young even longer.

I trust there is a male acei in the tank? Mbuna cross breed quite easily.


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## aroussel (Mar 5, 2003)

Yep..shes holding. About 21 days before she spits. Don't stress her out by trying to catch her too soon, because she may spit way too early. Give her about 2 weeks before you try to move her. Congrats Marc!


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## RedHaze (Oct 20, 2007)

aroussel said:


> Yep..shes holding. About 21 days before she spits. Don't stress her out by trying to catch her too soon, because she may spit way too early. Give her about 2 weeks before you try to move her. Congrats Marc!


Exactly. I've been waiting until females have been holding for two weeks, then I move them to a separate tank and let them spit there. I provide a pile of small rocks so that the fry can hide there until I remove the mom from the tank. BTW, congrats on the hold.


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## walleye (Aug 20, 2007)

I've noticed on my acei, they develop fast. About 18 days is plenty for them to hold. I separated one female, I was gonna wait 21 days, but after about 18 days, I noticed little fry swimming around her. Plus, they are little. After 18-19 days, the egg sack was about completely gone.


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## aroussel (Mar 5, 2003)

Walleye is right about Acei spitting a little early. That can happen. One of the other above posts was also correct when stating that the yellow labs will hold almost a full month. So keep this in mind when your labs spawn.


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## aroussel (Mar 5, 2003)

One more thing...
Since this is the first time your acei breeds, dont be disappointed if she spits her eggs out after a few days. Sometimes it takes a try or two before they get it right. Hopefully that won't be the case here. One good thing is, atleast you know you have 2 different sexes of acei.


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

but i don't know which of the other three is the male or if all are!
thanks for the input. the kids are getting pumped up about having babies so i hope it works out.


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## Joea (May 25, 2004)

laihafloyd said:


> but i don't know which of the other three is the male or if all are!


Well, that one is a female for sure.

What else do you have in the tank?


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## bma57 (Sep 16, 2007)

ashilli48 said:


> Does she act likes she hungry during feeding time, rushing up to the food but not eating?


I've seen the exact same thing. Sometimes mine will swim right up to a pellet up high in the tank and follow it all the way down to the sand as it sinks. It gives me a chuckle even though I feel kind of bad for her.


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

i can hardly find her now. she seems to hide just about all of the time that i'm around. it's been about 4 days and she's still holding though, so that's good!


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## cerissa (Mar 18, 2008)

Congratulations!!!! :dancing:


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

it's been two weeks and i was doing my water change so i decided to try and catch her and put her in the my new 10 gal tank. as soon as she got in she spit about 20-30 fry! i think i may have jumped the gun on moving her, but its too late now. all the fry seem to be doing o,k.

Question - should i remove the mom now or let her stay in there with them for a while?


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## Joea (May 25, 2004)

She's done... you can remove her.

Congratulations.


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## Dewdrop (Nov 20, 2007)

Well done! Congrats. Sounds like a big batch for a first hold, to me anyway. Yes, remove her before she eats them lol. You cycled the new 10g. tank first, right? Woooo Hooo baby fishes :thumb:


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

i actually used some of the water from the main tank originally then i let a betta occupy the tank for about a week - the readings look good so far. I was a little surprised by the number too but i think i have a friend who'll take a few and i'll try to trade some at the lfs! And now there's a new development... After i finished my water change on the main tank, it appears that i have another acei holding! i could be wrong though, we'll see. i may go from four acei's to about 4 dozen in a few weeks. crazy


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## Joea (May 25, 2004)

I would add some media from a filter on your established tank to the filter on the ten gallon. Adding water from the main tank does nothing, the water doesn't cycle, the filter does and a week isn't sufficient for bacteria to build up and cycle the tank. The cycle hasn't spiked yet and adding those fry may be a death sentence in another week or so.


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## bmills (Apr 17, 2008)

Hey congrats from me too!

I've had my Maingano and my Yellow Labs breed but not my Acei yet (then again I've had them only a week!)

How big were they when this spawning started out of curiousity? At 2.5 inches should I be expecting action anytime soon?


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

i didn't realize the bacteria, etc. didn't exist in the water... thanks for the info - i've still got a lot to learn. would adding rocks or sand from the original tank help at all? i'm not sure how i would be able to transfer media from the 55 (it's a biowheel with some activated carbon filters) to the 10, which only has a little air driven filter.

as for the size of the acei, the dominant male which i think spawned is about 2 1'2 inches, maybe a little larger. the females are about 2 inches.

i'll check my water parameters right now.


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## bmills (Apr 17, 2008)

Hey - just checked out your tank photo. Nice!

Yes transferring rocks and sand will help - especially the substrate (sand) as the large surface area on the particles mean lots of room for bacteria.

Seeding from a filter shouldn't be too hard either. The carbon - especially if its been in there a while - should have plenty of bacteria on it. If you can get the carbon granules out just put some into a small net bag (you can improvise with cut-off stocking) or even loose in the bottom of your air filter.

If its not loose, make a net / stocking bag with some sand or gravel in it, put it in your existing 55g tank's biowheel filter for 3-5 days at least, and then transfer it over into the other filter to seed it. Or, even simpler, just make a bag with some of the established tank's sand substrate. (I'd do both, but maybe I'm overly careful).

Not as perfect as fully cycling a tank, but a MASSIVE improvement on nothing at all!!

Just as an aside people get carbon mainly for absorbing chemical impurities in aquaria, which is what it is sold for. In fact it is only effective at doing this for its first week or so in any tank. After that what it becomes is a great additional site for bacteria filtration - acting a lot like the ceramic noodles that one also sees around the place - but next to useless as a chemical filter.


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## Shill (Mar 10, 2008)

I got a filter pad from someone with a much different filter when cycling my tank. I just took the whole pad and put it down in the water for a while. It doesn't look great but it seemed to do the job.


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## bmills (Apr 17, 2008)

Shill - haha you make me smile. I had time to cycle with my current tank but in past years have been known to have bits of cut-up filter pads from others stuck in water inlets, rammed into my new filters, etc to get the cycle going well.

Looks like **** but in my experience it makes a HUGE difference. I have kept a notepad with all my aquaria, with water readings etc, and looking back through I can see that a full fishless cycle takes me usually 15-16 days (with Stress-Zyme as an additive) whereas the same fishless cycle boosted by substrate or filter media from an established tank takes about 10 and in one case (where I transferred out pretty much a whole filterload into a smaller tank) I was settled in 6 days!


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

i was scooping out some sand from the 55 and noticed a fry somehow got left behind! It'll be interesting to see if he survives in the main tank. i don't think i could get him out now if i tried.

bmills, thanks for the comment about the tank. i used to have a betta in a little 2 gallon bowl that wasn't filtered or anything with some gravel on bottom. i moved the betta and the gravel to the 10 gal for about a week. though it wasn't a whole lot of gravel, maybe it will help.


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## laihafloyd (Nov 28, 2007)

i checked the grow-out tank saturday and i had about 1ppm nitrites. i did a 50% water change and took the biowheel out of the main tank and floated it in the grow out tank to help cycle the tank. The fry still look good and the nitirites and nitrates were both down yesterday (i'm out of test strips - going get more in a minute). Should i leave the biowheel in the grow out tank and buy a new one for the main tank? Or will the filter on the grow out tank be sufficiently cycled so that i can take the biowheel out and put it back in the main? Should i step up the water changes on the main tank while it only has one biowheel in it? Thanks for any advice....

Marc


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Leave the biowheel in the new tank and get a new one for the old tank.


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