Here are a few of pics of my favourite communist fish and their spawn . This is their first successful spawn, they have laid before but the other fish ate them but they now have the tank on thier own and are defending their fry more aggressivley then any other cichlid I've owned. The would quite happily bite my hand off in a second.

The fry are just over a week old and are already munching on the algae on the back of the tank. At a guess I would say there is about 100 of them.

Proud father: (without flash)



And again: (with flash)



and again: (with flash) You can see a few fry above his head.





The fry chowing down: (you will have to turn your head sideways to the left)



and finally the proud mother:

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8' x 2' x 2' - Piece of Ocean.
6' x 2' x 18" - Wild Caught Zaire 'Moba' Frontosa
4' x 2' x 20" - Malawi
4' x 22" x 18" - Malawi + Victoria
4' x 18" x 18" - Breeding Cuban Cichlids.
Trigon 190 - Paratilapia Polleni
30" x 1' x 1' - Hospital Tank
2' x 1' x 1' - Tropical

and

7x - 1' and 2' cichlid fry tanks

lovely looking fish , and grandad can just make out the fry to

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senile old git

Slash they are beauties

Lovely looking fish mate!

They look big, what are they 5-6"?

Thanks Pete and Grandad.

They are not as big as you think. Male is around 5" female is about 3". Should just over double in size fully grown. Suprised how much fry they had eventhough the female is so small.

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8' x 2' x 2' - Piece of Ocean.
6' x 2' x 18" - Wild Caught Zaire 'Moba' Frontosa
4' x 2' x 20" - Malawi
4' x 22" x 18" - Malawi + Victoria
4' x 18" x 18" - Breeding Cuban Cichlids.
Trigon 190 - Paratilapia Polleni
30" x 1' x 1' - Hospital Tank
2' x 1' x 1' - Tropical

and

7x - 1' and 2' cichlid fry tanks

WOW, congratulations mate

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Those fish bring a whole new meaning to, "a fat Cuban"

what beautiful fish,nice to see the babies,goodlooking setup too.

Slash
Well done mate. They are Nandopsis Tetracanthus so they will get a lot bigger but in my experience breeding when young tends to stunt them a little. Feed the young on high protein food like Tetra Doromin. If you soak it first it will sink so you can target feed them.
I look forward to seeing them as they grow.

Good luck

very nice looking fish, good luck with growing the fry on.

Thanks for the comments guys..

but its bad news I'm afraid. Eventhough I haven't seen it myself, I believe the male has been helping himself to a little snack every so often when the missus wasn't looking. There are only a few left.

I was hoping I could leave them in their with the parents and they would grow to a fair size. But it seems they aren't as good parents as my Salvini when I had them.

I shall have to take them out next time they spawn....which means setting up moooooooooooore tanks

__________________
8' x 2' x 2' - Piece of Ocean.
6' x 2' x 18" - Wild Caught Zaire 'Moba' Frontosa
4' x 2' x 20" - Malawi
4' x 22" x 18" - Malawi + Victoria
4' x 18" x 18" - Breeding Cuban Cichlids.
Trigon 190 - Paratilapia Polleni
30" x 1' x 1' - Hospital Tank
2' x 1' x 1' - Tropical

and

7x - 1' and 2' cichlid fry tanks