Ophthalmotilapia nasuta Kipili Gold F1 fry.

[sir_keith]

I have fry from my wild-caught Ophthalmotilapia nasuta Kipili Gold! Finally! I was going to post the progress in the 'What did you do with your tanks today?' thread, but after several abortive attempts, I didn't want to jinx it, so I waited until I actually had free-swimming fry to post here.

I have had this group of WC young adults, 3 males and 5 females, for about 18 months. Like all wild-caught featherfins, it took them a while to settle in. Here is the colony, which also includes some Enantiopus kilesa.



I had the first spawning of these last November, but the female only held the eggs for 2-3 days, which is typical for the first few spawns. Here she is holding her newly-laid eggs; not nearly the obvious mouthful of other mouthbrooders-



I had two more spawnings in the spring, neither productive, and I believe two different females were involved. Here's the dad in normal coloration; in spawning dress the yellow gets more intense, and the fins and head turn smokey black-



My latest spawning was on August 21, and for the next two weeks I fed the tank sparingly, with flakes only, so that the brooding female could eat, but carefully. After 4-5 days she was still holding, so the critical period had passed. I kept a careful eye on her to make sure she wasn't being bullied, but then finally on September 9, her 19th day of holding, I moved her into an unoccupied 55g brooding tank, along with one of the smaller females for company. I moved the 'midwife' back to the main tank five days later.

This morning, four weeks to the day since spawning, the female was sifting the substrate, and five small fry were swimming just below the water surface, which is typical for these fishes just after release. Here is the proud mom; she looks very good after four weeks of eating only sparingly-



And her little ones (sorry about the bad pic; they move so fast it's difficult to photograph them). They are already showing yellow pigment in their dorsal fins, a bit hard to see here-



I'm super-psyched to have these fry. Kipili Golds have been bred in captivity, but you rarely see tank-raised fry for sale, and having a colony of F1 Golds- which are genetically equivalent to wild-caught but easier to handle- will be awesome. And generally once a female has raised her first brood, she's a much better parent going forward. These are one of my all-time favorite fishes, so a great day in the fish room!

 

[lloyd378]

Congrats! That’s exciting news.

Even with my central and South American cichlids, getting WC to breed in captivity is very tricky.
I’m excited to see your colony grow

 

[DMD123]

Congrats on a successful spawn!

 

[sir_keith]

Update: Both mom and her 5 fry are doing fine. The little ones are very active and feisty, and have been chasing each other around since day 1. Pretty funny to see 5 tiny fishes (~1 cm) fighting over space in a 4-foot tank! They have now moved down in the water column, which is where these fishes normally reside, are no longer schooling, and have developed some pigmented vertical bars, which is typical of Ophthalmotilapia juveniles. Here are 3 of them-



O. nasuta are omnivorous fishes, but they do very poorly on a protein-rich diet, so my adults get the same spirulina-based diet as my Tropheus about 75% of the time. I am feeding the little ones 3-4x per day, also with a predominantly spirulina-based diet.

I have raised Ophthalmotilapia nasuta Chimba Tiger before, but I very much doubt that Kipili and Chimba are actually the same species- the morphometrics of adults are clearly different, and when kept together, Chimba and Kipili ignore each other. It will be interesting to see how quickly these little Kipili Golds develop their distinctive characteristics.

 

[Orthopod]

Update: Both mom and her 5 fry are doing fine. The little ones are very active and feisty, and have been chasing each other around since day 1. Pretty funny to see 5 tiny fishes (~1 cm) fighting over space in a 4-foot tank! They have now moved down in the water column, which is where these fishes normally reside, are no longer schooling, and have developed some pigmented vertical bars, which is typical of Ophthalmotilapia juveniles. Here are 3 of them-

View attachment 6671

O. nasuta are omnivorous fishes, but they do very poorly on a protein-rich diet, so my adults get the same spirulina-based diet as my Tropheus about 75% of the time. I am feeding the little ones 3-4x per day, also with a predominantly spirulina-based diet.

I have raised Ophthalmotilapia nasuta Chimba Tiger before, but I very much doubt that Kipili and Chimba are actually the same species- the morphometrics of adults are clearly different, and when kept together, Chimba and Kipili ignore each other. It will be interesting to see how quickly these little Kipili Golds develop their distinctive characteristics.

This is awesome - congratulations! Hadn’t checked the African section in awhile. You’re going to have to give me some pointers.

 

[sir_keith]

UPDATE #2. Today marks four weeks since my first batch of O. nasuta Kipili Gold F1 fry were released. The five little ones are doing great: eating well, and very active. Three of them are now about 3/4" TL; the other two are slightly smaller. Here they are; sorry about the quality of the pic: these little devils never stop moving and are difficult to photograph.



The other big news in the Kipili Gold colony is that last night I had another spawning! Same male, different female. I was able to watch the whole thing, which was way more interesting than the political news on TV (in any event, I have already voted). O. nasuta don't spawn like Tropheus or Mbuna, in which the ritual usually proceeds from start to finish without a break; rather, they seem to spawn in discrete episodes, with the female taking breaks and cruising around the tank between encounters. This may be a reflection of their lek mating system in the wild, in which the female may visit the nests of multiple males, and and raise mulitpaternal broods. This may rile our monogamous ethos, but it makes perfect evolutionary sense, as the female is able to maximize the genetic heterogeneity of her progeny. Here is a pic from last night of the male above his nest, waiting for the female to return (another lousy pic, taken with my phone). Normally he doesn't mind if his E. kilesa tankmates go into his nest, but during spawning it is strictly out-of-bounds, as you can see-



Here is the brooding female this morning. I believe this is her first brood, so she may or may not carry to term. I will not feed this tank for 48-72 hours, so as not to tempt her with food during the first few days, which are critical. Fingers crossed!

 

[sir_keith]

UPDATE #3. Today is the 21st day since my second wild-caught O. nasuta Kipili Gold female spawned with my alpha male. All is well, and she is still holding. As usual, I left her in the main tank for several days after spawning, and fed the tank lightly with spirulina flakes, which did not tempt her. However, within a day or so the alpha male was in spawning dress yet again, fussing with his nest and being aggressive, and on day 6 he spawned with another female (#3), a smaller fish, her first spawning. Three days later, female#3 aborted, which is typical for the first time around. The following day, I moved female #2 into a 55g brooding tank; this was day 10, earlier than I would normally move her, but I was worried about her stress levels given the alpha male's hyperactivity. Here she is 11 days later, day 21 of brooding. She is doing well, and I expect her to release her fry at about this time next week. I am hoping for another 4-5 of them.



Meanwhile, the five fry from female #1 are now 7 weeks old. They are all doing fine, now just under 1" TL. Ophthalmotilapia do grow quite slowly.



Hopefully female #3 will spawn again soon, and hold her fry to term on the second attempt. I'm a big believer in letting females learn how to brood naturally, and having three proven wild-caught breeders would be awesome.

 

[lloyd378]

Amazing updates! I am happy to hear about all the success

 

[sir_keith]

UPDATE #4. Exciting day in the fish room! As I mentioned in my previous post, I was hoping for 4-5 more fry from my second wild-caught O. nasuta 'Kipili Gold' spawning, and this morning, on her 29th day of brooding, female #2 released fifteen fry! Yikes! Here she is, shortly after release.



She's in brooding dress here, not showing much gold color, but when I moved her back into the colony this afternoon she colored up immediately.



Here are her little ones-



The interesting thing is that these fry are noticeably larger than the first spawn, even though female #1 is a bigger fish and had only five fry. The only differences in the handling of these two spawns were (1) I moved female #1 to a 55g brooding tank on day 19 (she released on day 28), and female #2 on day 10 (she released on day 29); and (2) I fed female #2 more often than female #1 during brooding. To the latter point, Ophthalmotilapia females do eat whilst brooding, unlike many African cichlids, and I begin to wonder whether the young actually eat in the buccal pouch late in their development (this possibility was suggested to me by my girlfriend, who is not a fishkeeper, but does have a Ph. D. in developmental biology). I've never seen this possibility discussed in either the scientific or hobbyist literature, but I plan to look into it in the future.

Finally, here is a group shot showing some of the new fry on day 1, and a few of the first batch at 8 weeks old (3 fishes at the bottom of the pic). The older fry are only about 50% larger in TL, but I would estimate that they have 2-3x the biomass of the little ones, and as you can see in the pic, the older fry have gold pigment, which the little ones lack.




I'm looking forward to watching these grow, especially now that I have the makings of a nice F1 colony!

The proud Papa-