After around 3 months, one green texas grew bigger than others and started bullying other fishes in the tank. It started to dominate the entire tank except for the Piranah. That fish turned out to be an adult male green texas.
The male Gree Texas cichlid:
I left 2 females and that adult male in the breeding tank and turned on the heater. Also did some water changes which triggered the breeding conditions. The pair started digging out pits in the aquarium.
The second female was just to keep the male busy and not to bully its female pair. Green Texas are usually very aggressive fishes in particular the adult male. so make sure that the adult is accompanied with some fast running fishes so that the female doesn't get attacked during the breeding process.
Soon, the female lays her eggs on a surface like rock (in this case) and the male slowly moves over the eggs to release his sperms to fertilize them. After a day or two, some eggs turn white, which are the unfertilized eggs. The unfertilized eggs can be seen in the below picture, where the female is guarding the eggs. I would say approximately 200 eggs were laid.
Cichlids are well known for its parental care and it takes care of its young once very well. In my case, the first set of frys were eaten by the male and the female turned dark black and agressive to guard it. So on my second attempt, I wanted to remove the parents after seeing the free running frys. But thankfully the female has moved the eggs to a clay pot I had kept in the tank and the frys hatched inside that safely. Once I saw some signs of hatching, I remove the adult male. The fry didn't come out of the pot for a week as it had the egg sack for feeding. First very few fry started to come out and I moved the female to the community tank.
After few days all the frys started swimming. I read that newly hatched brine shrimps were really good for frys so I wanted to try that. I got some eggs from an online store and after 2-3 attempts, I was able to successfully hatch brine shrimps. Also, my aquarium had some culture of copods which were consumed by the fry after few weeks. Other foods were powdered flakes and food were given to the fry.
Female guarding her eggs:
1 week old green texas fry:
Free running frys (1 week old):
It took almost 3 months for the fry to reach an inch. But only few reached that size and the tank was not enough to hold all the 200 frys. So I had grow out tank ready for some of the frys to be moved. After that even more young ones started to grow. If we make sure that every one of the babies gets enough food, then we can guarantee good growth in them. With frequent live food, the growth of these babies can be enhanced as well as the natural color of these fishes.
3 months old Green Texas fry:
More than 80% of the frys survived and with even more care, we can increase the survival rate.
