Breeding Kribensis!
Here we have a short account of my experience of breeding Kribs, along with some pictures taken at various stages during their life. I hope this is of some use to you.
Kribs, or Kribensis make great pets, and are fascinating to watch raise a family. They show real character, like most cichlids, especially with a batch of babies to look after. I've kept a wide variety of tropical fish, and Kribs are by far my favourite.
I've recently been fortunate enough to witness my second pair of kribs raise a family. Well, to be more specific, it's a single-parent family at the moment. It seems the mum-krib was so proud and protective of her new offspring, she beat the father to death. Here's a short page about my beginners experience of breeding kribensis.
Instructions on how to make your own pet kribs breed
- Get yourself a fish tank
- Put some fine gravel in, so the kribs can dig holes in it
- Whack a plant pot in upside-down, with a hole cut in the side for the kribs to live in
- Purchase the decent man-krib
- Purchase the biggest, fattest red-bellied woman-krib you can find
- Stick them in
- Wait
Kribensis don't seem to be too fussy about water parameters, they're supposed to like a neutral PH, but the PH in my Kribensis tank is around 8, and they do great. I've noticed that I seem to get batches of mostly the same sex babies. This is dependent on the PH, I think. I've also noticed that a clean, bright tank makes a massive difference to how active, and interesting they are, so I make an effort to keep it vacuumed, and the light clean of algae.
After much entertaining flirting and fighting, the new krib couple dig holes and try to select the best place to raise their little'uns. Hopefully in their plant pot. It's hilarious watching them dig. They carefully and methodically remove one or two stones at a time, placing them in a neat pile nearby. They can spend hours doing this, sometimes taking turns to keep watch while the other digs, sometimes digging together. When they're happy with their construction site, the female krib disappears for a few days, then emerges, hoarding a group of tiny youngsters around.
Baby Kribensis Day One
Like so...
What to feed baby kribs
It seems baby brine-shrimp are the best food for kribensis fry, and makes them grow quickest. My first batch of baby kribs were fed on baby brine shrimp, which I squirted at them with a pipette. That way, they appeared to catch pretty much all the food and missed none. I don't like using the liquid food for baby egg-layers, as it seems to make a bit of a mess. I seem to have pretty good results crushing up a single flake in the lid of the flake food pot until it's really fine. Then, using a pipette from a fish medicine kit, I mix in a drop of water, suck up the resulting liquid back into the pipette, and squirt it right at the little chaps. It always seems to go down a treat. Tonight, (around weeks after hatching) they were invaded by daphnia. :-) The daphnia are actually too big for the baby kribs to eat, but they definitely seem to like trying. It must be like trying to eat a whole watermelon in one go.
Baby Kribs Day Three
Three Week Old Kribs
The little guys are mostly venturing away from mum now, finding their own food. Can you guess what colour flake they had for dinner tonight?
Kribensis At Six Months
...A long gap, and finally some more (not very good quality) pictures. The kribensis tank is now getting very crowded. I'm sure they're not growing as big or fast as they would given more space. It's now pretty easy to tell males from females. The females have a more stumpy round look, while the males are longer and thinner. At this stage there isn't much difference in colour, but eventually the females will start to show a colourful red belly. The older the males get, the further back the tip of their fin stretches. I don't know if it's coincidence, or whether it's dependent on the hard PH 8 water here, but about 80% of the last two successful batches of young kribs have been female...
Kribensis At Seven Months
Sadly, I had to take most of the krib family back to the shop to relieve the overcrowding in the tank.
Adult Male
And a couple of years on, here's one of the fully grown kribs. Not in a particularly colourful mood today, but he shows off his colours on HIS terms, not for the camera!
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