# Male Maingano holding eggs?



## n9inchnails

my female maingano (Melanochromis _cyaneorhabdos_) has had less than 1 week to recover the last 3 times she has mated and was getting extremely thin and weak, but than about a week and a half atfter she started holding, i noticed she was eating ferociously, and wasn't holding anymore, i assumed she spat the eggs out due to extreme hunger, but then i noticed the male was holding the eggs, A MALE HOLDING EGGS! i have never read or heard of a male holding the eggs for his hungry, exhausted female and was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this behavior as well.

p.s. he's been holding for 3 days now


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## Darkside

Pictures?


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## n9inchnails

I have pictures but i don't know how to post them, can anyone help?


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## CICHLUDED

n9inchnails said:


> A MALE HOLDING EGGS! i have never read or heard of a male holding the eggs for his hungry, exhausted female and was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this behavior as well.


Most likely your cyaneorhabdos are both female....

This link has the info for posting pictures:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... hp?t=21085

.


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## Dave

I have seen females hold another female's eggs. All the cases of males holding eggs from Malawi have all turned out to be misidentification.


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## CichlidWhisperer

Hmmm... are you sure the previous batches have been pure breeds? And do you have only two in there? If the answer to both is yes, one must be a male and one must be a female...


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## Darkside

Who knows you could be a first! Pictures! opcorn:


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## n9inchnails

I definitely have 1 male and 1 female, i only have 2 mainganos one has the DISTINCT COLOURATION OF A MALE. they have also successfully mated at least 5 times, so unless you beleive 2 females can successfully mate one is definitely a male

thanks to CHICLUDED i am currently working on uploading pictures and i should have them uploaded by the end of the day


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## n9inchnails

These are Pics of the female with her distictive white throat and belly, also her stomach is sunken in from 3 months of almost no food due to excessive mating


















These are pics of the male holding, notice the dark throat and belly indicating a male, no female maingano has a dark throat or belly, they are signs of a sexually active, or dominant male


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## Dave

Need to see the vents. You have plenty of fish in there that could have been the father in the past.


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## n9inchnails

this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.


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## CICHLUDED

n9inchnails said:


> this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.


 :lol: :lol:

Sorry to laugh, but Mbuna will mate with whatever is available....even a Hap...

I think you need to vent your Maingano...

.


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## n9inchnails

show me an article or report written by an actual doctor of biology that states this melonochromis species will mate with fish that do not have a horizontal bar, especially seeing how it has been scientifically proven that the horizontal bar is how this fish identifies fish of the same species. what you are implying is as plauseable as a tiger mating with a house cat.


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## n9inchnails

CICHLUDED said:


> n9inchnails said:
> 
> 
> 
> this fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fish, as you can see from my tank profile i have no other torpedo shaped fish, or any horizontally striped fish in my tank, nor has there ever been.
> 
> 
> 
> :lol: :lol:
> 
> Sorry to laugh, but Mbuna will mate with whatever is available....even a Hap...
> 
> I think you need to vent your Maingano...
> 
> .
Click to expand...

WHAT!!! Are you INSANE??? Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna? Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do you have any understanding of animal behavior or genetics, are you part of the +50% of your population that doesn't even beleive in evolution?


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## Gibbs

I'm sorry to say mate, but the chance of your maingano breeding with an albino or Socolofi are fairly high.
I know there is no real way of telling a maingano's sex unless you actually vent this fish, but i have a fair bit of experience with this fish through close friends and have witnessed spawning behaviour, and if i were to buy the fish in question i would be buying the fish thinking it was a female. I no i will be hated on for this but im about 90% sure that the fish in question is a female


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## Gibbs

I'm sorry to say mate, but the chance of your maingano breeding with an albino or Socolofi are fairly high.
I know there is no real way of telling a maingano's sex unless you actually vent this fish, but i have a fair bit of experience with this fish through close friends and have witnessed spawning behaviour, and if i were to buy the fish in question i would be buying the fish thinking it was a female. I no i will be hated on for this but im about 90% sure that the fish in question is a female judging by it's colour pattern and lack of egg spots.
I know guys it's no way of telling but in my experiance that is a female


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## cater20155

WHAT!!! Are you INSANE??? Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna? Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do you have any understanding of animal behavior or genetics, are you part of the +50% of your population that doesn't even beleive in evolution?

In reality, these fish may not be far enough removed genetically to prohibit interbreeding. To examine the possibilities, of the species in question, of crossbreeding a complete genome analysis would have to be done for both species, comparing many parts of chromosomes, gene locations, etc (this can get very complicated). Also, behavioral differences do prevent crossbreeding to an extent in the wild, but if the species are still close enough to genetically allow for crossbreeding, accidents will and do happen. Within an aquarium, these different species are kept very close and 2 different species could crossbreed on just a chance that the sperm of one species finds the egg of the next species. My knowledge on the cichlid genome is limited, so i can not either way if they can or can not, but there may be possibilities for crossbreeding.


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## Dragonkeeper

Agree with the cross breed theory. The fish you hold in your hand is, by my estimation a female. I can make this educated guess as I have one male and 4 females in a species specific tank currently breeding regularly for me.

In the aquarium interbreeding is quite common even among completely different genuses (sp) of fish.

Just my .02

Keeper


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## CICHLUDED

n9inchnails said:


> WHAT!!! Are you INSANE???


Somewhatâ€¦



n9inchnails said:


> Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna?


Give the right circumstances, YESâ€¦



n9inchnails said:


> Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.


I said the same thing when you wrote thisâ€¦
â€¦ â€œthis fish would have only bred with a torpedo shaped horizontally striped fishâ€


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## iceblue

N9inchnails.

Careful of some of the sweeping statements your making. I have a female socolofi that has bred with my Kenyi, greshaki, OB red zebra and my "torpedo shaped, vertically striped" auratus. When it comes to a species of M/F Mbuna with similar appearance you can't always use the small differences as a true indicator of differential sexing. The female socolofi I have was bought because I thought it was a male. It was of good size and color, very aggressive and had many eggspots with clear deliniations and was in a tank with females that were smaller, slightly different color with diffused eggspots. Much to my suprise a few months later "he" was holding.

I have a feeling you have two female Maingano that have mated with something else in your tank because they didn't have a male of thier own species around. The only sure way to tell is to vent them.


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## Dave

The issue here is that the OP is making a fatal assumption; if two fish are different species then they cannot mate. I am sorry, but this is absolutely false. In particular, most cichlids from lake Malawi are capable of interbreeding in the aquarium setting. This is especially true when they are kept in small groups with insufficient numbers of females, as is the case here.

Evolution has nothing to do with the situation we are dealing with here. Then again, maybe it does, since it demonstrates that the speciation in this lake is relatively recent compared to Tanganyika.


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## Gibbs

aww well, you had our attention for a little while.
Little bit more research on Malawi cichlid behaviour might be a good idea :roll:


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## n9inchnails

My fish got pretty stressed when i had to net him to take those last pics, so i am going to wait until it is no longer holding to vent em


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## marcusbacus

Also some females can sort of disguise themselves trying to look a bit more like males sometimes. I had this _M. greshakei_ female that used to display much more blue shades instead of the typical brown while she was holding and was being bothered by some other fish.


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## Darkside

n9inchnails said:


> CICHLUDED said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> n9inchnails said:
> 
> 
> 
> WHAT!!! Are you INSANE??? Do you actually beleive any mbuna can mate with any mbuna? Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do you have any understanding of animal behavior or genetics, are you part of the +50% of your population that doesn't even beleive in evolution?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I have an understanding of both and I can assure you that almost ANY mouth brooding cichlid can reproduce across the species and genera boundaries. There was even an instance of a cross between an auratus and a Tropheus with pictures somewhere here on this board!


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## Dewdrop

Wish I had my camera here. I have 4 maingano. 1 assumed male, 2 females, and 1 I'm unsure of but going by color should be female. The 2 that I know are females are holding right now, the thing is, one of them is as dark as the male so I don't think you can go by color. You'll have to vent to be sure.


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## bulldogg7

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... p?t=175011
here's a few pics of my female auratus and her vent. They may help.


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## marcusbacus

> I have an understanding of both and I can assure you that almost ANY mouth brooding cichlid can reproduce across the species and genera boundaries. There was even an instance of a cross between an auratus and a Tropheus with pictures somewhere here on this board!


If the reproduction will or not be succesful is another story, but it can happen. It happened with me too - a female _T. duboisi_ and a _N. livingstonii_. She ate the eggs or they weren't fertilized or something, but they did it.


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## thstrngr7

I have what I am relatively sure is a a male Auratus that is holding right now as well??????????


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## thstrngr7

n9inchnails said:


> my female maingano (Melanochromis _cyaneorhabdos_) has had less than 1 week to recover the last 3 times she has mated and was getting extremely thin and weak, but than about a week and a half atfter she started holding, i noticed she was eating ferociously, and wasn't holding anymore, i assumed she spat the eggs out due to extreme hunger, but then i noticed the male was holding the eggs, A MALE HOLDING EGGS! i have never read or heard of a male holding the eggs for his hungry, exhausted female and was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this behavior as well.
> 
> p.s. he's been holding for 3 days now


\

I have a male auratus that is holding also. He wouldnt eat and his mouth looked funny. I thought he had a rock stuck in his mouth so i fished him out and opened up his mouth and found eggs. Has anyone else ever heard of this??????????


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## Gibbs

Your male auratus is a female. Female Auratus can take on the colouration of a male sometimes


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## Dave

Again, another case of misidentification.


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## Floridagirl

I have Maingano, and your two both look female. My males have more Black and eggspots, but again...venting is the best way to check. Mine were labeled Electric Blue Johanni at the LFS, but I just knew that they were Maingano. I had them let me vent in the store, The first time I ran into a female with the coloring, I knew that they were Maingano! Went to Segrest Farms website(where they get their fish) and sure enough, what they call an Electric Blue Johanni is the Maingano! Aniother way to prevent crossbreeding is to provide large groups of a fish species. Fish that have many mates of their own species will crossbreed less. And Any Mbuna will mate with Any other mbuna. If you don't believe us...Take a male and a couple females of totally unrelated mbuna and put them in a 20 breeder. You will eventually get hybrids, no matter the species. Good Science Fair project for your kids!


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## Dewdrop

Hey just thought of something about the maingano. Look at the 2 front underneath fins (sorry dunno what they are called but where the front legs on a 4 legged animal would be) on my male those fins are a good bit longer than the females.

The LFS called mine electric blues too but I'm sure they are maingano, it's a common nicname for them, as is electric blue johanni, which in my opinion is REALLY dumb :roll: .


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## LeilupiLoopy

n9inchnails said:


> show me an article or report written by an actual doctor of biology that states this melonochromis species will mate with fish that do not have a horizontal bar, especially seeing how it has been scientifically proven that the horizontal bar is how this fish identifies fish of the same species. what you are implying is as plauseable as a tiger mating with a house cat.


I cannot actually show you an article from a doctor or other authority but I myself have had a Maingano breed successfully many times with a Labiochromis Hongi.. the resulting fish has both horizontal and vertical stripes, but being an impure bloodline i tend to feed them to my oscars.


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## Chromedome52

The fact is that they don't have to actually "mate" with males of other species, you simply have to have the other species get close enough to the spawn site to release milt. Just seeing or smelling another species spawning will cause some males to release milt. And actual interspecies mating happens all the time with Mbuna in aquaria where the species recognition mechanisms break down due to close proximity, especially if you do not have both sexes of the same species.

I've personally seen a cross between a male _Dimidiochromis compressiceps _and a female _Pseudotropheus livingstoni_, and there are dozens of other crosses that are documented by experts. There is insufficient genetic separation between the species in Lake Malawi, which as I understand are basically descended from two lines that are closely related. All Mbuna come from the same descending line, and that's why you don't buy fish from the mixed tank at the box stores.

This hybridization problem has been recognized in Mbuna since the 1970s, at least.


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## swansuite

I got absolutely nothing to add, but must say it's a really interesting thread.


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## GotCichlids?

If in fact it is a male and he has eggs in his mouth he is simply holding on to them for a snack later haha


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## nauTik

n9inchnails said:


> show me an article or report written by an actual doctor of biology that states this melonochromis species will mate with fish that do not have a horizontal bar, especially seeing how it has been scientifically proven that the horizontal bar is how this fish identifies fish of the same species. what you are implying is as plauseable as a tiger mating with a house cat.


LMAO

people are funny...


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