Spawning Aulonocranus dewindti 'Ikola Honey Strain'
By Michael McKinney
from The Underwater News, Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, January 2004
Aquarticles
Aulonocranus dewindti is a mouthbrooding cichlid from Lake Tanganyika in
Africa. This fish is part of a group of species of Lake Tanganyikan fish referred to as
featherfins; species including Cunningtonia, Cyathopharynx, and Ophthalmotilapia.
Aulonocranus dewindti, in the wild, is the most common featherfin in the
intermediate habitat (sandy bottom and characterized by many rocks) and has a lake wide
distribution. It feeds on insect larvae and crustaceans. The species is perfectly equipped
for this type of feeding preference, with enlarged sensory pores on its head making it
able to detect movement of its prey in the sand. This characteristic is shared with the Aulonocara
(peacocks) species of Lake Malawi. Aulonocranus is also a nest builder, where
territorial males form breeding colonies and attract females from groups gathered together
and hovering above the substrate.
I was able to obtain a group of 15 wild Aulonocranus dewindti from Russ Utsler
(www.russutslersfish.com) in California. My group is from Ikola and is referred to as the
Honey Strain. Ikola is in Tanzania on the Western shore of Lake Tanganyika, in the upper
third of the southern half of the lake. This variation of Aulonocranus dewindti
is a gorgeous looking fish with the dominant male displaying a beautiful combination of
blues and yellows. The females and subordinate males of the species are basically colored
shiny silver but do display a spangling of iridescent purplish blue hues along their
sides.
I placed this group of fish in a ninety-gallon tank with a group of four wild Chalinochromis
brichardi. Best I could tell, I started with the 6 males and 9 females. Within the
first few days it became clear that there were too many males for this size tank. I caught
and removed 3 males to another ninety-gallon tank, which contains males of many other
species of fish. So that left me with 12 Aulonocranus dewindti (3 males and 9
females) in the ninety-gallon tank. This tank contained about 2 - 3 inches of crushed
coral as a substrate and had three small piles of rocks, one in each corner and one in the
rear middle of the tank. At the center of each of these rock piles was actually a clay pot
inverted and siliconed to its base. A hole was cut into each pot. The plan was for these
three caves would be territories and spawning sites for the Chalinochromis brichardi
(of which I had two pairs) while the Aulonocranus dewindti would roam the tank as
a whole. This plan for the most part is working out well as both species are successfully
spawning. However what I did not plan for was the extent to which the Aulonocranus
are nest builders. Within the first week the dominant dewindti male had every piece of
crushed coral in the tank on the right third of the tank. Every piece !! His nest took up
the entire third of the tank, was about 7 - 8 inches deep, and had totally buried one of
the three rock piles I described above. Pretty impressive display of nest building.
The tank is filtered by an external Aquaclear 500, as well as three sponge filters that
are attached to an air pump that drives sponge filters in all my 40 tanks. The three
sponge filters basically sit atop each rock pile, with one partially surrounded by the
dewindti male's nest. The pH of the tank is maintained at around 8.2, hardness is roughly
125 PPM KH and the temperature fluctuates between 76 - 80 degrees. These fish are varied
diet of cichlid flakes, spirulina flakes, freeze dried Krill, cichlid sticks, frozen brine
shrimp, and frozen blood worms. All of which are readily accepted. Roughly 25 - 30% water
changes occur every 5 - 7 days, depending on how closely I stick to my routine.
Under these conditions the Aulonocranus dewindti are doing great. The two
subdominant males take a balanced amount of aggression from the dominant male and this
seems to give the females enough time to recover between attempted lures from the dominant
male. At any given time I typically have 2 - 4 females holding young, 2 - 4 females
recovering from the last spawn, and 2 - 4 females ready to spawn again. Tough to tell how
often each female does spawn but I would guess it is every 8 - 10 weeks. After letting the
females hold their clutches for 1 - 2 weeks I typically strip 20 - 25 young from each
female. The young are transferred to a 20 - 30 gallon grow-out tank where they are fed a
diet of baby brine shrimp, white worms, and crushed flake food. They easily attain a
length of about ¾" in 3 to 4 weeks.
All-in-all a great fish to work with.
Literature Cited: Konings, Ad, 1998. Tanganyikan Cichlids in Their Natural
Habitat. Cichlid Press. Pages 190-191.
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