Hosts for S. petricola

African_Fever · Post by **African_Fever** » 20 Oct 2003, 20:41

I've heard of petricola's being spawned cuckoo style a with multi's, and am wondering if anyone has any experience with this. I've been trying to get my pair to spawn for two months now with no noticable luck by themselves using the flowerpot/marbles (have added guppies as 'triggers' too) and am contemplating finding some hosts for them (they spawned for the previous owner numerous times).

Thanks in advance for any help.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 21 Oct 2003, 03:10

Heck, mine refuse to budge too; and if I randomly dump them in with cichlids, babies always turn up.
frustrating, especially since I always advice to put in guppies or so, and right now, the breeding tank -including the marble-egg-catcher and the fry-net- are literally crawling with guppies.......

I separated the males from the females for two weeks or so, fed black mosquitolarvae, did a major waterchange; nope, zip, nada.

And there's petricola babies in the showtank (!!) three months or so since the adults were removed?.

Try to put them in with cavedwellers or shellies; I guess mine got away with it again, by fooling -I think- the Julidochromis or the Trigs (??)

I've never seen petricola's spawn with mouthbrooders, but two of my adults were babies from the mouth of a Lethrinops (??) wich came from a big tank with all kinds of mixed Malawi's and Tangs....my cousin just bought that fish; at home it spat out two babies, and he thought they were weird looking multies, until I dropped by and saw that the finpattern (black and white) was 'backwards' (multies have black fins with a white edge, petri's white spines with the black behind) among other differences.....strange huh?

It's confusing.
according to the books and articles; petricola is an eggscatterer, NO broodparasite or cavedweller-fooling cat. Experience however and what I've seen myself, points in a whole different direction.