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Success! Breeding the cuckoo catfish.


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Hey guys, the other day one of my demasoni was holding, I decided to let it hold for about 12 days because they have usually been swallowing pretty early.

The tank is a standard 6ft with about 50 various Mbuna and haps and a colony of 5 Cuckoo Cats.

So come saturday morning i stripped her, and to my suprise wriggled out 8 alien looking things with long whipping tails !! At first it didnt click, but I soon realised what i had here haha !

8 little darting Multipunctatus, I was bloody stoked I had the plan of setting the tank up with a few breeding colonies of fish later and trying to breed them, but they beat me to it I guess haha.

Not having much experience in keeping these fry, let alone much fry at all, so I put them into a fry saver and went to the LFS and bought some BBS. Let me tell you these guys not only eat other cichlid eggs while they are growing in the mothers mouth but they eat each other, only the strong survive I guess, I would come down In the morning to check on everything and one would be swimming around with its mates head sticking out its mouth lol.

So its been about a week and a couple of days now and they are about 1.5-2cms they eat like bloody pigs, I feed them baby brineshrimp 3 times a day, but that didnt stop there hunger, from 8 I now have 5, purely from them eating each other.

I will get some pictures up as soon as I can Im just having trouble finding the camera atm.

But yea, Im stoked and cant wait for the next batch, Id really like to have a go at breeding these guys in the future.

Thanks

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congrats. they are a rewarding fish to breed. there is nothing like getting a batch of cuckoo eggs out of another fish's mouth.

Congrats and may there be future clutches

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Well good for you! when they finish eating the eggs you have in with them, try to get more cichlid eggs to them, it makes them grow really fast and healthy.

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congrats mate and best of luck

not so sure about feeding them cichlid

eggs though would it not be better to try

and hatch the cichlid eggs :dntknw:

just my opinion :blink

when i say hatch the eggs i mean to keep

the fry not use them as food

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:) Absolutely, cichlid eggs are the way to go. I have bred the cuckoo catfish many times over. The eggs they start off with are eaten within a few days, especially if you have a few kittens on the go, you would be surprised at how many eggs they go through. New eggs are their favourite food and of course hatched eggs are fine too.

I dont keep cuckoos anymore as I had to keep getting new colonies of cichlids that had never seen cuckoos before, as they learn very quickly what the catfish are up to.

I love catfish though so I moved onto S. petricola years ago and they are a challenge as well. I also breed peppermints and chose to steer away from the aggressive mouthbrooders and keep small Tanganyikan shell dwellers such as N. busheri, to try and keep the peace in the aquarium... :hug:

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