Breeding Acara's
This blog page will be about the accidental breeding of my acaras and the journey along the way, hopefully reasulting in healthy fry. As previously
discussed in the blue acara cichlid profile (Electric Blue Acara Profile) it is diffucuilt to sex juvinel electric blue acaras, in the blog post I will be explaining how I happened to have a breeding pair of acaras. In my community tank I previously had two electric blue acaras that were brought as juveniles and about 6 months later were fully grown and mature. Once the electric blue acaras were fully grown I could tell I had two males and they got on happily within the community aquarium. Within the community tank was tiger barbs, rainbow fish, loaches and catfish. After a trip to an aquatic shop and falling in love with a juvenile blueacara (Blue Acara Profile) I brought home two new adititions for my community tank. At this point I was unsure of the sex of the two juvenille blue acaras and the shop assistant couldnt tell their sex either. Within the first hour of adding the blue acres into my tank some concerning behaviour was shown. The larger male electric blue acara became aggressive to the other blue acara and was shaking at one of the new juvenile blue acras. At this point my fish was obviously aware that one of the new additions was in fact a female however I could still not tell. After doing more research into spawning behaviour I realised that the adult electric blue acara was showing mating behaviour towards the blue acara. Due to the blue acaras size of about 3’’ I wasn't too concerned that breeding would occur until a few months as blue acaras should be 4 inches in size before they are sexually mature enough to breed. At this point I decided to plan on setting up a breeding tank for the breeding pair to be moved into once the female was large enough to breed. However the fish had other plans and started to lay eggs within the community tank. Electric blue acaras are relatively peaceful cichlids which is why I have had success keeping them in a large fish community tank, but as the breeding began the aggression levels increased in both the male and female. The other acaras in the tank were pinned into a corner and any other fish in the tank that went over to the rock she was laying eggs on was viciously attacked. Before any casualties took place I set up and moved the male and female pair and their eggs into a smaller breeding tank. The breeding tank was set up with a sponge filter so the fry wouldn't be sucked into the filtration system with few rocks/cave and plants to allow the fish to hide and settle. Unfortunately the move stressed out the parents and the next morning the eggs were gone, presumably eaten by their parents due to stress of moving. Currently the breeding pair have been left in the breeding tank to settle in and hopefully will lay eggs in the near future. Updates on their progress will be posted regularly.
Video of mating behaviour by the male acara.
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