Sharing this amazing story. Was given permission by the author to share it.
Yesterday I sucessfully removed my first fry from my Mpimbwe colony!
I have had the colony for about 6 months (WC and imported approx. 6 months before I received them). I started off with 5M and 7F. Four of the seven females held while I had all 12 fish, but none for more than a few days. I finally found a home for 2 of my males about 6 weeks ago. I ended up removing the alpha and beta male, not really being concerned about the time it would take for a new alpha to establish himself. Well the 2nd largest of the remaining 3 males quickly established himself as the most agressive. About 3 weeks later (Apr07)my 2nd smallest female(5.5 inches) was holding for the first time, bringing the total number of females that have held to 5.
Well she continued to hold and I stripped her yesterday afternoon. She was in very good condition and didnt look overly emaciated for a fish that had barely eaten for 3 weeks. It took less than 2 minutes to strip her, and as soon as she was back in the tank she was patrolling around for food, pecking at any little particle floating by.
I got 4 healthy looking fry with partial egg sacs from her. All the fry are wriggling around with the help of a good current in a 5.5 gallon and are looking good.
The fry tank is the one perpendicular to the main 125 gallon, beside the XP3.
So its been 1 month sine I stripped the 4 fry from my 2nd smallest female. There are only 3 now as I accidentially crushed one (was hiding behind the heater suction cup, which is now moved higher). They are a lot of fun to watch grow. Here's a few pix of them in a 23 gallon long growout.
Well, since I moved the 3 remaining Fry from the 5.5 gallon on 25MAY05 I figured it was time to strip my 3 holding females. I wasnt sure of the exact date, but 2 of the females were holding from around 01-03 May, and the 3rd from about a week later. I didnt want to strip the 3rd quite yet but I grabbed her accidentally.
The first female I stripped had 27 very large and well developed fry. Only a small partial egg sac remained and they had very dark stripes.
The 2nd female I grabbed was the one who had only been only for a couple of weeks or so. Her fry had huge egg sacs remaining, and the fish were very small and pale. Almost no visible stripes. There were 23 Fry in total. They were wriggling around a bit however. I was concerned they might not survive without a tumbler. However when I placed them in the bare 5.5 with the 27 larger Fry they were moving around quite a bit. I have a dyna-flow (green aquaclear) mini on the 5.5, and I leave the water level about 2 inches below the filter. I find this creates a very decent current within the entire tank that the fry must swim against. As well, the larger fry kept swimming around like crazy and bumping into the 23 smaller ones, which encouraged them to move around. The next day, not only were all 23 less developed Fry alive, they were about twice as big, moving around like crazy, and you could see all 6 stripes.
I had to go to work so I grabbed the 3rd female the next evening(26May05). She was a smaller one as well, but had a good sized gob. She had 24 well formed fry, with excellent stripes. One floater as well, who swims like mad all the time.
The 5.5 gallon now has 74 Fry in it, and it looks amazing. They usually form a couple separate groups, but when they are all together it is quite the swarm.
I wanted to add that it took only 60 seconds or so to strip these females. All began eating when I fed them later that evening, and there were almost no signs of any stress. I didnt even have to remove any rock work. I have a tonn of caves, so when the female is hiding in one, I would place a net in front and back of the cave, and she would swim right into one of them. I give much of the credit to the fine tips on stripping provided on this forum.
Fry in a bucket from the 3rd female stripped
All 74 fries
From this morning 31May05...
