Before anyone decides to breed flowerhorn or fish in general, i believe in the proper use of the culling process. If you breed and you think its okay to give away low grade fish that you dont want instead of culling them, its not okay. because with the low grade fish, it will suffer sad fate if you dont cull it early. No one wants bad quality fish, bad quality fish will tend be mistreated and be shoved in a cramp tank with all other bad quality fish and there they will fight each other over scare food, and will even turn on one another for food. Giving it for free to local fish pet store is not okay as well, for they will suffer the same fate if you think the LFS is willing to sacrifice money to tend to the unsell able fish. I have seen even some good grade been mistreated at LFS. Plus never and i say NEVER release fish into the ecosystem thinking you save their life and gave them freedom. If you release them into the local river, ponds, or flush down a toilet, you will face a fine and possibly some jail time for doing so. Releasing pets into the natural world habitat is illegal and im pretty sure its obvious to alot of aquarium hobbyist but i feel still need to be reminded at times. So please folks, use the culling process and save the fish a early life of suffering thanks guys.
Now about breeding etc etc.
To differentiate a male fh and female fh is simple. Just vent it like any other cichlid. Male will have a V shape and Female will have a U shape. Female ZZ type flowerhorns like redragons/zzmal or any that has a strong trimac bloodline will most likely have a black marking on top of its dorsal fin to be easier to recognized as a female. Females usually will start laying eggs round 4in depending on its genetics ofc but usually good breed females will lay at 4in size. Females can have a big nuchal hump but that is rare trait for usually it is the males with the big hump. Ofc you will get some male that will have no heads at all. Only the venting system works for other strains of female, the dorsal fin marking only works with zz females most of the time.
Females and Male fh will need to be separated before one can really put the two together or other wise the male will kill the female, vice verse. I usually separate my males and females until i see they don't fight each other across from the divider. Note not all males and females are compatible like us human being. So sometimes you might just have to get new mates if you want them to breed.
i say a tank of 55gal+ is good size tank for the fish to mate. the bigger the tank the better ofc. temp for this type of fish should always be around 85-86 degress Fahrenheit. keeping the water clean with good minerals will also help them mate for clean water in the nature means theres plenty of resources to sustain the fishes and will help them grow faster. The fishes will usually lay their eggs on top of a semi rough surface for the rough surface helps eggs stick better.
Males will usually flaunt their aggression and show the females that they are the dominate. Females like dominate males. The male will spread its finnages as wide as he can to show off in trying to court the female. he'll swim aggressively swaying his body side to side. The females will test the males sometimes by locking lips with them. Yes, fish will usually get damage from the mating process but it shouldn't be anything to serious. Note sometimes this process could end up in a serious fight, if so divide the fish again and wait for them to fully heal up their injury before trying to mate them again.
If they are compatible then during the process of eggs laying and fertilizing, the female will drop her tube and she will drag her tube around the egg plate. The male will follow her in trying to fertilize the eggs. During this time around, is best not to disturb the fish in the mating process and let them do their thing. If you are successful then in a day or two you will have a egg plate full of eggs and you will see some with black dots. Black dotted eggs meant they are fertilized and the white ones are sterile and is considered dead.
After you are successful, theres plenty of option to hatch the eggs. You can always leave the eggs to be tended by the parents or you can take the egg plate out and tend them yourself. The first option is ideal if you see the parents care for the eggs. If you see either one of the parents trying to eat the eggs, remove that parent from the tank or divide it. If both parents are not tending the eggs, then is best for you to do it yourself.
When tending the eggs yourself, go ahead and move the egg plate into a 10 gal or I just use a bucket, with the same water coming from the parent tank. make sure to keep the temperature the same and have a air stone. filtering is optional and is not necessary for they will hatch in approximately 1-2 days after the eggs fertilized. making sure you a airstone and a heater is important. also if you are tend the eggs yourself, make sure to add methylne blue to keep eggs safe from fungus attacks. Fungus attack is usually what kills most of the eggs. After the eggs hatched, you will get some wigglers. These guys will take a week or so to be able to fully swim around and eat. Feeding it food when they are wigglers is not going to help them, and it will only dirty the water. Once they are up and about swiming and eating, they are ready to be moved into a bigger tank of their own. here you can watch them grow and pick out the ones you like to keep. All others should be culled. Hope some of my breeding tips helped. Good luck to all you breeders out there :] and would love to hear some of your breeding tactics as well.
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