Petrochromis sp Blue Giant

[SunnyHouTX]

Looks great man. They look as happy as when they were with Mom and Dad. A seamless transition.

Was looking at a couple of past pics and think your right, it does seem to balance things. Success is even more better when you've put a little work into getting it!

Agreed! And I can't thank you enough.

[SunnyHouTX]

Man is amazing tank and how big those f1 are

Thanks. They're around 6" for the most part, some a little smaller, some bigger.

[beto]

saw tank in person today, really awesome setup. coming along nicely.

[SunnyHouTX]

What I'm about to post was held back to appease the gods of ojo. Now that some offerings and sacrifices have been made, I've been cleared to proceed.

This all started Saturday 6/8 when I got home in the evening and noticed one of the smaller females was holding and the male was still "in the mood", kept chasing away all the other males from his area and dancing up to another female. Sure enough, after the water change on Sunday, she was breeding again. This is that female:



Her previous spawn had 33 eggs all of which turned out to be duds. So when I saw her going at it again this time around, I decided I was gonna try and keep all the other fish from them... by bribing them with food! So I stood by the opposite end if the tank, dropping in a little bit of food at a time for the next hour or so while the pair handled their business.

Both females kept denying food and holding like champs over the next few days. Since I was getting those F1 from thedude, I decided to strip them this past Saturday even though it's too soon to make sure that the male had his job under control.

Saturday arrived, I got back from picking up the F1s, drained the tank and stripped the two females before filling back the tank and adding the new F1 s.

This is what came out of the smaller female:



And from the big female:



All in all, 6 good out of 7 (one ruptured on delivery) from the small female and 34 good ones from the big female. I split them up equally between two tumblers and stuck them in the 210.

Progress of the spawn:

6/15:

And this morning, 6/17:

I also noticed another small female holding before I left to get the F1s and she's still holding. I'm gonna let this one hold for ten days or more now that I know the alpha male is handling his business because I can see bent tails on a couple of the eggs. The body parts that are developing are too fragile to fully withstand handling these fish and stripping at 5 - 6 days. The three fry I stripped at 10 days are fully healthy as they should be. I'm gonna notch the damaged ones to the learning curve and not strip sober than about ten days from now.

All I can say is, WHAT A WEEKEND!

[supadave]

That's what's up....Sunny ! Congrats......I know a lot of work goes into this so I'm glad to see you reap the fruits of your labor.

Sent from Galaxy S3

[SunnyHouTX]

Thanks Dave. Yeah, it was honest work trying to get them here. What a high though!

[johnnymisty]

Congrats thatd great its gonna be a breeding factory

[aquabee]

Cha Ching!!

This is awesome. Can't wait to come see these guys once they're free swimming.

[SunnyHouTX]

At the rate the first three grew, these should be free swimming by mid next week!

[LordBarron7692]

Great job Sunny.

[Ballinxalex]

Congrats sunny wow that's alot of eggs

[moganman]

Very nice man. Things like this that make all of the headaches and questions worth while. When they start it has an avalanche affect.

[New_Cichlid11]

These fry will grow so fast

[SunnyHouTX]

Very nice man. Things like this that make all of the headaches and questions worth while. When they start it has an avalanche affect.

I was definitely questioning my own sanity a few times when batch after batch of eggs turned out nothing LOL

[New2petro]

Wow, have not been on the site for a while but it looks like you have become the BG producer of the year.Congrats Sunny, great job. All of the hard work and countless hours are paying off.