Breeding Dempseys Pink/Gold/Blue

Q&A About Central American Cichlids

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Lionhound
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Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 6:32 pm

Breeding Dempseys Pink/Gold/Blue

Post by Lionhound »

Hello Pam, great work you are doing here. Very informative and for that I thank you.

Not sure if this should be in the Central or SA section, as I believe these fish are natinve to both regions. Anyways, I do have a few questions.

About a year and a half ago I stumbled across a trio of Pink Dempseys. At least that was what the LFS was calling them. First time I have ever seen them, so I had to have them. I took them home, skeptical that they were dyed in some way and was eager to find out by attempting to breed the lone female with one of the males. Now I was successful in this and the babies were all of the Pink or Gold Morph. I was told that theyt carried the Blue Gene, but in 5 or 6 hatches I have yet to see anything resembling a Blue. But...In the last hatch, one of them does bare some charachterisitcs of a Red Devil. The more slender narrower face etc. So it got to thinking and here would be my first question.

Are Pink or old Dempseys a true morph of the species, or are they hybrids? I do not know if these occur in the wild or not or if they were somehow genetically altered.

Now my next breeding project was to try and entice a pair of Blues to mate with some of the Pinks. I put them together and I do have a mating pair. I put the fish together and in a group of about 7 or 8. I added structure by adding some slate, caves and a couple of flower pots. Lastly, I did a water change. That prompted the dominant make to pick his partner, and the rest is history. Eggs were laid on top of one of the flower pots and most looked good, but I had a handful of white ones. The next day, I had half white. Now on what is the 4th day I have a whitish film covering them and all of the eggs are totally white. I have been told that white eggs are dead eggs. So unfortunately I do not believe I will have wrigglers anytime soon.

So with that, my next question is this. Do you think the failure to hatch was due to the male or the female? The eggs looked clear at first then turned white later on.

Also, I have heard that many people had a hard times with the Blues being sterile. Do you know how much truth there is to this? Also, with the Blues are the females more likely to be infertile or are the males more likely to be sterile?

Any help is greatly appreciated and once again thanks for all your hard work.

Joe in NY
Pam Chin
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Re: Breeding Dempseys Pink/Gold/Blue

Post by Pam Chin »

Hi Joe,

Our friends in asia have been cranking out all sorts of pink, gold, red and blue fish. Jack Dempseys are considered Central American cichlids, but I am not surprised to hear that different color morphs are appearing. The Dempsey which has been in the aquarium hobby for over 50 years, and so far no one has seen a pink, gold or electric blue type in the wild, so it has to be something man made. No one is sure how they cross the color into the fish, there are several theories, and there are some that are injected with dye, while others just swim in colored vats and soak in the dye. I just saw that a new electric blue ram is now available from asia, you just never know what is going to pop up next.

Since we are not sure what they are crossing into these fish for color, or to get an albino version, trying to breed these fish can be frustrating. some are sterile some are not, some don't breed true, others the fry only lives a short time, so it is not uncommon to have problems getting viable fry.

If you are looking for projects with fish, I would encourage you to work with cichlids that are on the endangered or critical risk list. Some of these habitats are gone forever and if we don't maintain these fish we will lose them forever.

http://www.carespreservation.com/

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