Wayne Leibel came to our club workshop and I told him about my Xingu 1's...he said that I was the only one to have spawned them so far.

I couldn't believe it, since they spawned fairly readily. I started with 3 fish, about 3" long each. I grew them up on bloodworms, brine shrimp, guppies, krill, etc. Soon after completing their metamorphosis, two teamed up on the other and killed it. They were displaying after that so I removed them and put them in a 125-gallon with some bogwood and PVC. They were always on one side of the tank together--never saw them chase each other. Now the male is roughly 10" and the female is bigger, close to 12". They spawned underneath a piece of bogwood, probably at a 60° angle or so. Not vertical, not completely upside-down. There was about 200-300 eggs, long, amber to beige eggs hung by threads. The fertility rate was not good. There were only maybe 75 free-swimming fry. The parents guarded them for a long time! They were well over an inch when I removed 20 or so (that was all that was left) and put them in a 30-gal to grow out. Now there are only 11, but mortality rate is now 0. They are all in exceptional health, already showing strong orange color and being fed bloodworms and brine shrimp. In the breeding tank, the pH is 6.2, temp 84°F, no hardness at all. I will probably write an article soon, and will take some pics of the fry and the parents.

I am in Atlanta, Georgia. I am fortunate enough that my water out of the tap is very good for keeping South American cichlids. Little to no hardness, pH is neutral. I use a little Seachem Discus Buffer to bring the pH down, to approximately 6.2 for the Xingu 1s. For this reason, I do not use RO. On the 125-gal with the Xingu pair, instead of doing 40 or 50% weekly, I do 10% daily water changes. If I am indeed the first U.S. resident to spawn the Xingu 1s, this may have been the trick. I try to change as little as possible in their environment. This way, the water is the same quality all the time. I think it makes them more comfortable.

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http://geocities.datacellar.net/NapaValley/5491 Latest update: 20 April 2000 Comments on this page: E-Mail author