article and illustrations by Erik Olson
December 1996

I was given a pair of the Nigerian Green form of Pelvicachromis taeniatus as a present (see Kienke article, this issue) while I was off in Houston last August. I didn’t really have any space for new fish, but when do we ever have enough space? Indeed, the question really is when do we ever have enough tanks? And since this pair had been living in a 10-gallon tank at a store for some time (well, a week, before my eagle-eyed fiancee snapped them up) we figured they’d probably do OK in another 10. So out of the Igloo(TM) cooler and into a new tank they went.

I should probably say something about aquascaping for dwarf cichlids. I’ve been keeping medium-sized planted tanks for about 5 years now, and I like to apply the same sort of design to even my newer 10-gallon species setups: good lighting and lots of plants. I keep a full 2-bulb shoplight over four 10-gallon tanks, which is roughly equivalent to a 2-bulb hood over each (double the typical lighting). For plants, I tend to go with low-light species, such as Anubias, Vesicularia dubyana (Java Moss), Microsorum pteropus (Java Fern), and Ceratopteris sp. (Water Sprite). Unlike the larger planted display tanks, I might need to take the decorations out at any minute when removing fry from the tank, so plants are either left floating (Water Sprite, Frog-bit, etc), potted (some Anubias, Water Sprite), free-sinking (Java Moss), or rooted to pieces of bogwood (Java Fern, Anubias).

In addition to plants, I also keep a few overturned clay pots, sometimes with holes sawed in the side (see front cover). the females lay their eggs on the upper inside of the pot. Sometimes they choose more natural settings, such as nooks in the bogwood, but I’d like to give them a choice. Depending on the species, a single small hole may serve as protection, keeping the larger male from entering. With others, such as the Nigerian green, the female actually widens the front entrance by digging out some of the gravel underneath it. Oh yeah, gravel...I keep a small layer of gravel in this tank, enough to cover the bottom glass, but no more. Lastly, I run a single sponge filter (Hydro, to be precise. I just love those heavy bases!) and a 50-watt Ebo-Jäger submersible heater (I’ve gone through enough bad heaters to ever switch back again).

male

OK, so we were talking about Nigerian Greens, right? They are definitely a more subtle color form than other P. taeniatus I have seen; In fact, for the first week or so, they showed no color at all. The male was almost white! The female started to relax first; her belly became a dark maroon-purple, and she got almost Krib-like distinct and bold black lateral markings (see the illustration). There was an occasional hint of green between the lateral line and belly, but other than this I’m not sure where the name came from. Once the male calmed down, he tended to get slightly red and purple highlights to his otherwise solid grey color. Definitely subtle.

female

My first shock with these fish came less than a week after I’d got them home, when I went to clean and re-aquascape the tank. When I pulled up one of the clay pots, the female came dashing out of it, and I noticed a clutch of eggs on the inside wall. Hoboy, that was fast! I put that cave back quickly. A few days later, however, the pair showed no interest in the clay pot and I found all the eggs gone. I didn’t see any fry, and the parents did not seem to be in anything resembling spawning color, so I disappointedly chalked it up to first time parent syndrome, and figured they’d try again the next month. Imagine my bigger surprise two more days down the line when both parents started parading their no so dead as you expected, eh? fry around. They were as cute as Kribs are, maybe even better parents. The fry stayed in a tight group near one of the parents at all times. They would switch off care just like I’ve seen with Kribs; one parent guarded the fry while the other went off to eat. As time passed, the kids grew very fast, and did not need to stay in such a tight formation around the parents.

The fry ate baby brine shrimp readily, and even started to eat flake food in less than a month. I may have given them occasional Daphnia supplements as well.

male, as widower

Unfortunately, while these taeniatus are as easy to spawn as Kribs, they share some of the nasty traits of Kribs as well. I did not build another tank for housing the fry, figuring I’d let the parents watch them for a while. The time stretched out to two months, way longer than I was expecting. Eventually the parents got ready to spawn again, and proceeded to kill all the juveniles they could find. I was only able to rescue about five from the first spawn into an emergency tank (by siphoning them out at water changes!) but the incident did wake me up enough to build some fry-rearing tanks for next time...though there doesn’t appear to be a next time. The female died unexpectedly (old age? We never knew how old the fish were when we got them) after her second spawn, and the young disappeared the next day. All we have left are the few juveniles and the bachelor male. These things happen in the hobby. Sigh.

Erik Olson is current GSAS president and all-around Pelvicachromis fanatic. He loves to write author bylines, but finds himself in the uneasy position of having to author this particular one.