| I am fairly new to the hobby, starting my first tank about a year ago, 55 gallons. I didn�t get interested in cichlids until I had first seen them a few months later. Now, many new fish and many more tanks later, I am on my way to having a nice size setup of aquariums. I now have three 55 gallons, one 29 gallons, five 20 gallons and six 10 gallons.
Now on to my story of the Jack Dempsey, I bought the Jack Dempsey as one of my first cichlids. I was drawn to the idea of having such a brute in my tank. His first tank-mates consisted of a yellow labidochromis, a O.B. peacock, 2 red tail sharks, 2 convicts and 2 spiny peacock eels along with some plecos. The Jack Dempsey was very timid as he; I assumed it was a he, tended to stick to staying in his own cave. He never showed any aggression towards any other fish at any time, even if they came by his home. I have also seen the yellow lab. go into his home with him in it and he did nothing. Then I became interested in breeding cichlids, which required me to try and find some mates before I could do this. After I bought a mating pair of Geophagus brasiliensis I had the pleasure of seeing a pair of cichlids spawn, which was very cool. I knew that the brasiliensis is one of the easiest cichlids to get to spawn. Now I was determined to get another one of my cichlids to spawn. Since I only had one Jack Dempsey, a male I thought, I had to go out and find a possible mate for him. I also had taken all of the other fish out of the tank and put in some Aulonacara stuartgranti, this had been done months before. So, I went to a local fish store and found a lonely Jack Dempsey in a tank along with some other kinds of cichlids. This one looked like a female based on what my Jack Dempsey looked like at home, she had shorter and more rounded dorsal and anal fins along with a lighter body color with brighter blue/green coloration on her gill plates. My male had longer and more pointed dorsal and anal fins with darker blue/green coloration. So, I thought I was partly on my way to having a set of mates, provided that I found a female and assuming that they would even pair up. I brought her home and introduced her into the tank that he was in, and to my surprise she went straight for his home. They stayed in there for about one minute, then they both came out swimming side by side�YEAH! Right away, she started to make some peculiar moves around him, like swimming with her body horizontally underneath him and then to his side again. This went on for hours with short stops by his cave. They�re color had intensified being a lighter color with brighter blue/green spots on there cheeks. The next morning when I woke up, I found the substrate moved all over the tank where they made holes, including the substrate around a piece of slate I had laying near their cave. I found eggs sitting on top of this piece of slate, a lot of eggs! I was amazed that this had happened the day after I had attempted to just find out if they would possibly pair up without killing one another. Two days later the eggs were gone of the piece of slate and I didn�t see any fry or eggs anywhere!! I did notice the female just staying in one spot by the slate where the eggs once were. The male would come around often to help the female chase off the peacocks that would come to close to the slate. So I peered closer, trying to look behind the slate and through the plant and saw the fry, with the yolk still attached, gathered there. You would think this was the end of my story, well not quite yet. A few days after I saw the fry behind the slate they were gone again. I saw the mother sitting in this hollow tree stump I had next to the slate, and she wasn�t moving, not even for feeding time. So, I got a flashlight and shined it in the dark tree stump there were the fry, all 500 or so. The next day they were free swimming and starting to swim out side of the tree stump. I figured let's get them out of there before the peacocks get a boost in protein. I got my siphon hose and started sucking them into a bucket. This took quite some time, the more I siphoned the darker mom and dad got, I mean jet black with white stripes. I finished getting every one of them as mom and dad start chasing the peacocks all around the tank looking who had their babies. I quickly grabbed my tank divider and separated the outraged parents from the rest of the occupants. They kept swimming at the other fish on the other side of the wall running into the divider. Soon they calmed down a bit. I then put the fry into two breeding nets back into the tank they came from (I can hear some of you now, read on). I placed them on the side of the peacocks, the calmer of the two sides, and feed them baby brine shrimp right away. This went on for about a day or until I woke up one morning to find one of the breeder nets was empty. That is right - either I had about 250 Houdinis on my hands, or some Aulonacara were very full at this time. To the other side the other 250 went, I thought they would be safer by mom and dad than by my little seamstresses. The very next day, all 250 of the other fish were lying very still - nope, they were dead. I have learned that breeding nets are not the greatest at allowing water to circulate through the net along with the oxygen. So, I have learned many valuable lessons from this, and I hope you did too. It would probably be best to keep the Jack Dempseys in their own tank if you are hoping for them to spawn. And if they do spawn, take the parents out of that tank when the fry are swimming. This way, you don�t have to worry about any fry turning into Houdini or suffocating. By the way, my Jack Dempsey are back to being a normal color and nice again�until next time. |
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| Cichlasoma Octofasciatum - Jack Dempsey
Living up to its name! by Rudy Pabelick [email protected] |
| This website has been established for the purpose of sharing my experiences with Jack Dempseys with those of you who may be interested. |
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