▷ Breeding and raising cockatoo dwarf cichlids | All info

Breeding tips

The breeding temperature should be 25 to 26°C. Otherwise, either an excess of males or females will develop. It is then difficult to pass on the offspring.

Spawning is imminent when a pair moves into a den. The cave is mainly defended by the female. It is typical breeding behavior when the female fiercely defends the cave and scares away any fish within a radius of about 15 to 20 centimeters that is even close to the cave. A clutch is then already available.

Top4 for breeding cockatoo dwarf cichlids:

Parental brood care

Cockatoo cichlid (female) caring for the brood Photo: Christine Jensen

The female often looks after the offspring alone, sometimes both parents take care of the brood. The young are often mouthed for transport. 10 – 20 young fish are put in the mouth and spat out again in a safe place in the aquarium. This is repeated until all young have been relocated.

The male often bothers the female with new courtship attempts while she is caring for the brood. The male should be removed if this causes too much stress for the female.

Some males help with brood care, at least part of the time, collecting the young with their mouths. However, it can happen that the young are spat out dead, probably if the male chews too hard.

Food for young cockatoo dwarf cichlids

The young feed on the yolk sac for the first 2 to 3 days after hatching. They swim freely about 10 days after laying their eggs. In java moss they find microorganisms as food. Numerous microorganisms are also present in a sponge filter or mat filter that has not been freshly cleaned.

If not fed, the young grow relatively slowly. Often the young later become runts that never reach their normal final size. That depends on how much food the young find in the tank. Without additional feeding with small live food, usually hardly any young fish get through.

If a larger number is to be raised, additional feeding is required. Fine live food is particularly suitable. An alternative is fine frozen food. The food is best dissolved in a little water and given with a syringe near the young.

Dry food is not particularly suitable as main food for rearing. Even the finest dry food is eaten poorly or not at all.

Food for young cockatoo dwarf cichlids should be around 300 µm. Young cockatoo dwarf cichlids are very small after hatching. Freshly hatched Artemia are real monsters for the young.

Therefore, some powdered food can be put directly into the den before the young ones swim freely. To do this, powdered food is stirred into a little water and sprayed directly into the brood cavity with a thin air hose.

After free swimming, powdered food can be given first and then Artemia nauplii after a few days. First, freshly hatched Artemia, later 2 days old, are fed. The eye diameter of the young fish is taken as a guideline for the size of the food.

After a few weeks, when the little ones are a bit bigger, frozen Cyclops and the occasional lobster egg can be fed.

Water changes encourage growth.

Cockatoo cichlid (female) caring for the brood Photo: Christine Jensen

Regular water changes are important. Growth is strongly encouraged if e.g. B. 20% water is changed daily.

After about 4 weeks, the young should be about 1 centimeter tall. Then squished red mosquito larvae can be fed. The young then grow rapidly and are about 3 centimeters long after 3 months. The first quarrels among themselves begin at this time.

From 1.5 to 3 centimeters in size, males and females can be told apart. The dorsal fins of the males are pointed and longer than those of the females. The final tip of the female’s fin is straight to rounded and not tapering to a point.

The different coloring only develops later. Males that are too young are therefore often sold as females in the pet trade.

Do young animals survive in the community tank?

In theory, if young hatch in the community tank, some young may survive as well. It depends on how alert the parents are and how much the other fish are stalking the young.

If rearing in the community tank is futile, the young should be transferred to another tank.

It is then best to move the boys after they have been swimming freely.

When are the boys separated from their parents?

Cockatoo cichlid (female) caring for the brood Photo: Christine Jensen

Normally, the young should stay with the mother as long as possible. On the other hand, the swarm becomes looser and sucking off the young more difficult as the young get older.

Usually the parents care for the young for about 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes even longer. The female usually stops caring for the brood completely as soon as she spawns again. However, it will not necessarily be dangerous for the boys afterwards.

The parents usually watch out until it is no longer dangerous for the boys. In a tank without enemies, the young are not guided as long as in a tank with other fish.

The young are sometimes chased away by the mother after the nursing period, but they are not eaten. Usually you don’t see the young for a while after that because they are good at hiding. Once they reach a certain size, they suddenly come out again.

Whether and how many of the young remain depends on many other factors, not just predatory fish.
Water and feeding are of primary importance. Stress from enemy fish is also not insignificant. The other fish don’t even have to catch the young, it’s enough if they annoy the mother.

If the young are separated from the mother, they should be relocated to a special rearing tank. The rearing tank is previously filled with water from the large tank. The breeding tank needs some sand, possibly some hiding places, a foam filter and a heater.

If no breeding tank is available, the young are better left in the normal aquarium. The food can be sprayed directly into the school of young fish using a syringe and a hose or a suitable tube.

The young should not be placed in a spawning box or spawning net. Spawning boxes quickly become too small, especially for dwarf cichlids. They can only serve as a short-term makeshift. Because many young fish normally hide, the young should also have a hiding place in the spawning box, e.g. B. a few floating plants or plant stems, a piece of wood, etc.

A breeding example

If as many young as possible are to survive, the young are placed in a rearing tank of around 25 liters approximately on the 2nd day after swimming freely. The young are carefully sucked off and placed in the rearing tank. Because the young are very small, a somewhat thicker hose should be used for suction and insertion, and suction should be carried out slowly and carefully with only a slight incline.

Apistogrammaca cacatuoides female with young Source: Image on Wikimedia Commons License: Public domain Author: RealDarkWhite

Only half or two-thirds of the young are taken away from the parents. In this way, the parents can learn how to guard and care for them. They don’t lose all their young at the same time and can take their time and recover until the next spawning.

The bottom of the rearing tank is covered with a few millimeters of very fine sand. A large root with lots of java moss and other plants serve as hiding places. The temperature should be 26 to 26.5°.

A sponge block with a powerful pump is suitable as a filter. The water is taken from the large basin at the beginning. No feeding is done for the first two or three weeks. The young find more than enough food in and around the root and do not go to other food at all.

If live food is fed in other aquariums, the landing net is briefly hung in the rearing tank. Fine components and microorganisms are washed out in this way. They are either eaten directly or stock up on the food stock in the root undergrowth and are eaten later. Otherwise, the young are not disturbed in the first few weeks. There are no extras, no work in the rearing tank, no water changes, etc.