This pair ( male on the left and female on the right ) of Archocentrus spinosissimus has just spawned on the flower por . They have not yet fully developed their breeding coloration .
males may not even change colour during the whole process . I ’ ve found that Archocentrus spinosissimus are pretty good parents , using what little aggression they possess in defence of their offspring . Archocentrus spinosissimus has extremely small eggs . Ron Coleman ( pers . comm .) has found that Archocentrus spinosissimus has the smallest eggs of all the heroine cichlids he has measured for his research on cichlid eggs . The eggs take around two days to hatch at which point it will become apparent why adding plants is extremely beneficial . Once the eggs hatch , Archocentrus spinosissimus hang their larvae upon aquatic plants ! I ’ ve found that typically the fish will hang the larvae on either a plant leaf or in the roots of floating aquatic plants . This behaviour is not unique to this species ; in fact , all three members of Archocentrus demonstrate this behaviour as do other genera such as Mesonauta , Pterophyllum , Symphysodon , and some Australoheros . Most likely this behaviour has developed to combat hypoxia in the larvae as the plants offer plenty of oxygen due to the by-products of photosynthesis for the larvae to consume ( Courtenay & Keenleyside , 1983 ). Interestingly , live plants are not a must . This species will gladly hang their wrigglers on plastic plants . When no live or plastic plants are provided
Archocentrus spinosissimus lay their eggs on vertical surfaces . Here the female chose to lay eggs on a flower pot .
the fish will sometimes hang their larvae from the surface of the water on water tension alone ! While live plants are not necessarily a requirement , I ’ ve had the best luck obtaining a successful spawn when live plants were in the tank . After about four to five days as wrigglers , the offspring become free swimming where they are usually found still nestled in the plants . Given the extremely small size of the eggs , it should come as no surprise the fry are also quite small , which poses some difficulties . I typically like to feed my new cichlid fry newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii . Unfortunately , depending on the source
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