Insticts or learned behavior?

[McEve]

Some fish take care of the fry, others don't, and readly eat their fry when their born - ie live bearers. From reading of other fish development in F1- F2 and further out, like Angel fish, it seems like they loose their instict regarding taking care of eggs and fry, and end up eating the eggs, and simply don't seem to know how to take care of the fry.

Is this something that could happen to Zebras?

Angels and other commercially bred fish often are removed from the eggs at an early stage, and the eggs raised and hatched artificially, and it might seem as though they loose their insticts regarding caring for fry after a few generations.

On this background, would you say it's safe to remove the fry from the Zebras care when they hatch, or could it possibly have the side effect that future generations don't know how to care for fry if we do this?

Or is cichlids a more "advanced" fish that rely more on taught behaviour than catfish?

[Barbie]

I was told that "stripping" female mouthbrooders could cause a drop in the ability of the second generation fry to carry their fry to term, due to a skip in the step of the "imprinting" process they get when they're in the mouth of their mother. I know that I personally didn't have problems with the fry that I removed from their mother at 16 or 18 days, but I've wondered about people that tumble their fry.

I think that with plecos it might impact in different ways. Males will eat their fry rather than care for them maybe? Who knows. I have been letting the male hatch all of my fry, but I sometimes swipe them early, and sometimes leave them til the yolk is all absorbed. It just depends on how much room I've got in the hatching containers, to be honest.

I think Fishnut2 usually takes his eggs from his ancistrus. He might be able to tell us if any of his breeders are 2nd or 3rd generation from his own spawns?

Barbie

[zebra046]

I think its a learned behavior, my best and most fertile male did not start out as the best breeder, he ate a few batches and kicked out a few more eggs before he bacame the best he will even take care of eggs that he did not fertilized, I would remove his newly hatched fry and add eggs from a differnt male and he would take care of the eggs and fry. If I don't do this he would raid the other males cave and take over the egg watch, but some males are not good at breeding they get to excited when a female is interested at him but will still raid other males and still sit on the eggs even though he is not breeding. and there are male that are just good at it from the start I believed this are experienced fish from the wild.

[McEve]

I'm sure the males get better with each try, what I was worried about was the "imprint" that Barbie speaks of.

It would be very interesting to hear about Ancistrus breeders experiences in this matter. It would be terrible to find two or three gererations down the line - meaning in 6-8 years - that the fish we put so much work into spawning and raising no longer knew how to care for eggs.

[Cascudo]

I have got another theory about the loss of ability to take care for the eggs/fry.
I think that breeding behaviour is geneticly imprinted (though this skill must indeed be trained, just as childs have the instinct to walk, but need to train it).
But with each breeding, mutations are born without this instinct. In nature these lines would quickly extinct, because they will not be succesful to reproduce (they eat their own eggs).
In a tank on the contrary, they have the artificial help of humans to reproduce (we remove their eggs before they eat them), so specimens with this weak instincts do continue to reproduce.

Looking at it this way, I don't believe that taking away the eggs will have a big influence on the breeding instinct of our zebra's. The offspring, depending on their genetic characteristics will or will not reproduce, independent of our interference.

Another question that I would like to ask: has anybody on this forum been succesful in raising fry by letting them all the time with their dad?
I don't have a clue how the dad would be able to feed them.

[Ed_R]

I'm wondering about behavior myself. I have two zebras, and the one larger one flits around a bit and has a circuit of favorite places to sit , while the other one is smaller and is never more than an inch or three away from its favorite spot. I'm wondering if these behaviors are possibly gender-based.

[Barbie]

I haven't been taking the fry until their yolk sac's are completely absorbed most of the time. Dad doesn't need to feed them during that time, as they are using up their built in development time from that large yolk sac they're blessed with. I figure any imprinting that needs to be done should be finished by that point, IMO. There just won't be any real way of knowing until we've raised several generations though, I'd think.

Not to mention, if I take the fry before they've absorbed most of their yolk sac, dad beats the snot out of the subdominant male in the tank, like it's somehow his fault! I guess after he's had them in there a couple more weeks he's glad to see them go. Typical parent of a teenager maybe .

Barbie

[Tristan]

I agree with Barbie on the Malawi score as i have stripped frmales at several stages of development with no adverse affects in teh offspring's ability to hold until full term. Don't know about zebbies though.