Good news/bad news.

[jonah]

Last night I noticed one of my female multis looked beat up. In fact I thought it looked dead at first. It was hanging near the top of the tank and didn't move until I stuck my finger in the water. Even then it was pretty listless and I noticed it's tail was chewed up. It was real easy to catch, like it wanted out or something. :bawl:

Anyway I moved it to a fry tank holding some week old electric yellow fry. The tank has a rockpile in it to hide in, but I thought it might be more comfortable with a shelll so I took one out of the original tank. Then when I came back to the first tank I noticed I was short 2 multis instead of one. I took a flash light and started looking around. There's a small piece of holey rock that they dug a cave under the first day and I thought he might be in there. While looking I saw a tiny little fry! :D They spawned already. I only found one, but I didn't want to disturb the tank anymore so there might be more.

It turned out that the shell I moved, which seemed empty, had the missing male multi inside of it.

[madgamer89]

hope your female multis gets better fast. Good luck on the fry.

[jonah]

Thanks Jesse, the female is doing better. I left the extra male in with her and they seem to be doing good. She's missing a chunk out of her caudal fin, but the rest of her looks great. I think one of the other females might have done the damage to her. They can get pretty fiesty.

So far it looks like I have at least 4 fry. They're about the size of a pencil lead. :)

[madgamer89]

glad your females doin better and hope the fry wont be eatten by all your fiesty ( :angel: ) cichlids.

[jonah]

It turns out that there are two spawns. I found a group of even smaller fry in a shell near the front of the tank. The first fry are about 1 1/2 times the size of the ones I just found.

[madgamer89]

Thats even better. Are the younger ones same speices?

[jonah]

Yes, all of them are multifasciatus. :D

[PhishNFilly]

Jonah, please tell me how you came along with these fish. I am going into tangs and I need as much advise I can get. Did you ever go with the black? I saw three I really liked alot. They were called ink spot calvus. Did you ever go both compressceps and calvus? Julie

[ge2655]

jonah,

I keep similis (close relative to multis) and it is funny but you very rarely see the first spawn. When you finally do see fry, it is usually the result of a prior batch. You're gonna love them shellies, they are quite fascinating.

Regarding the outcast female, that seems somewhat unusual. Normally a male will go rouge and get booted out of the colony albeit temporarily. Many times they will make up and be allowed back in (this has been my experience).

You may encounter an issue if you attempt to put the two exiled fish back in with the colony. You may need to do a little shuffling around (re-arrange the shells, smooth out the sand piles, etc.) in the main tank and slip them in among the chaos. They probably will still 'encounter' each other but more than likely they will work out their differences if the tank is large enough.

Good luck.

Regards,
-Gary