The theory is being tested...

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So in a previous thread regarding the early spawning age of my F1 Mpulungu (9-10 months from conception) and fellow forum member proposed that fish become sexually mature by 9 months of age. While true for some species I have successfully bred (mostly malawi's) my experience with troph's has been different. I have witnessed numerous spawns of young troph's but none have ever carried past 4-6 days. My resulting wonderings;

• were the eggs fertile & the young momma too inexperienced to carry them? 
• were the eggs fertile & the need for food (part of the inexperience) too great to carry them?
• were the eggs infertile & swallowed once the momma realized there were no viable fry in her mouth?

The girls are clearly able to produce eggs but is the dominant male fertile yet? So I decided to put the theory of sexual maturity of my young dominant troph male to the test.


I had a spawn yesterday morning and this evening after lights out I caught out the female in question and stripped 7 eggs. Unfortunately 2 were damaged in the process being that her mouth was so small and I am slightly out of practice. So 5 seemingly undamaged eggs are now in 1 of Larry's tumblers. To be honest, they didn't look fertile to me as they were not the golden color I am accustomed to, but I have never seen mpulungu eggs before. The next few days will tell.


Stay tuned...

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Should be a noticeably different color than infertile eggs. They get darker. Sometimes they will get a line where the cells have settled and this is a sign of being infertile as well. Have any pics of them?

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Ok so the initial theory test has failed with this batch of eggs...as Drew described, a line delineating a lighter from darker 1/2 characteristic of infertile eggs has developed...round 1 of testing complete...theory 0, counter theory 1