CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

My oscars have been being all lovey lately doing all of the classic prespawning stuff but for the last two days the female( I think) has insisted on a certain piece of slate in one end of the tank and the male( I think) is being noncooperative and favors the other end of the tank and trys to herd the female down there.This is all pretty funny to watch, has anybody ever seen such behavior before?I don't care if they don't spawn right now as I am building a breeding tank for them.They just look like a quarreling married couple and sometimes they bite each other but it's only superficial.

Yeah my are doing that! They shake from head to tail and slap each other. Then the female heads for lava rock in one corner, the male follows then heads back to the other side , in favour of hte slate. Can someone tell us how to solve this? If i take the lava rock out could this upset the fish?

I moved the rocks around and mine got all annoyed.I'm trying to get them in the mood again.They did eventually agree but I bumbled it.

Put in a Nice big SLATE slab, flat not angled etc....it will be new and they can both learn to love it...I find mine prefer the slate over other stuff....yea basically eliminate some possibilities if there's too many good egg laying spots....

Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

Before I even posted I took all of the rocks out of my tank and gave my oscars a peice of slate that was about 12"x6". They weren't in the mood at the time and the slate didn't seem to warm things up at all. I have reverted to plan B and lowered their temprature and it will remain that way for a few days. Then I'm going to perform a large water change replacing some of their tank water with warm water and jack the heat up again. They usually get lovey when I change their water or the heat goes up( I've been informed that this is typical). The parameters are ok I think my bumbling and impatience disturbed them before. When they were trying to spawn before the ruby red ( George) turned the most horrendous( I think) color for the entire period and became normal again when they stopped trying to spawn. I asked about that in my other post "Spawning colors". I figure if I can get George to turn that color again and leave them alone they may be sucessful this time.At the moment the white one(Polly) is chasing George around the tank for no particular reason that I can discern other than the fact that Polly is larger and the dominant fish. How does this plan sound? Any suggestions?Any idea about why they are chasing?

Why do ya'll have lava rock in the tank? You know that it has very high amounts of iron in it. Like Joe said, I go with slate! If your fish don't like it...tough! HAHA!
Chuck
- Oh yea and all that iron messes w/ your tank water.

Hi Hip,

Well this is where all "guys" are alike, the males usually chase the females around Also, the males do grow faster than females(under similar conditions of course). It will take your fish a while to get used to a NEW rock in the tank. Mine used to go sideways and swim "around" the slate, not daring to swim "over" the slate rock. They soon learned to love it

Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

I don't use lava rocks, I use granite and serpentine pebbles as well as petrified wood. The chaser has been put in the quarentine tub because "he" tried to eat some visitors to his tank but that is a different story. They don't mind the slate. Do you think my new freeze 'em and change the water strategy will work( after the little miscreant is allowed back in the tank that is)?

Hi Hip,

Just arrange the tank so that it is a "no-brainer" for the fish, like they should think, "No, DUHH! we're supposed to lay the eggs on this black flat rock!". Yea, you can go ahead and try the Temp variation trick again, daylight hours are getting shorter so you may want to fake longer daylight hours, unless your fish go by "powered light" only. My fish are on the patio 14 to 16hours of fake daylight may help. And yea I think most noticed how early September was very good for spawning. Well just keep on trying

Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

Extra daylight?No problem! My oscars are at college with me they NEVER go to to bed before 10pm.

I bet they're doing your homework too Actually I don't even remember if we had homework, I barely ever went to class(well showed up for exams), o yea surprisingly I did pass

Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

My oscars had better not be doing my homework!Aquaculture majors are required to have a brain larger than the average garden pea and a cerebral cortex! My oscars don't meet the criteria!

Well, I don't know about that, my oscars got me trained pretty well, teacher's always greater than the student.....

Joe
www.cichlidfish.com