And I thought I have a lot of kids...

The fish in the middle of the picture (pale yellow with random spots) is Lovie! Levi bought her for me because she was ugly and he knew I would love an ugly fish. The only problem is, she is my only breeding female. So, we have an ugly fish making even uglier fish (that is her baby from her first "batch" to the left in front of her). The first time only about 8 babies survived. She was a new mom and did not know what she was doing, forgot they were her babies, got hungry, and ate some of them. They are mouth brooders. They lay their eggs, the male fertilizes them, and then they carry them in their mouth for about 3 weeks before releasing them. So, I figure she was probably really hungry. Plus, she is a small fish compared to the other ones, she does not have extra fishy fat to waste. In the 2nd batch all the babies died because we were moving the tank, she got nervous, and released them too early. We also lost our other breeding female in the move and her 3 babies. She only had 3 because we did not even realize she was a mommy until 3 babies showed up in the tank and she was protecting them. We were wondering why she was acting so weird.

Anyway, this is Lovie's 3rd batch of babies and she is now a seasoned mom and we did not lose one. We moved her into a separate tank when it looked like her mouth was about to bust open being so filled with babies. Open your mouth as wide as you can while still keeping your lips together and then puff out your cheeks. That is what she looked like... and I bet you look even siller than she did trying it out right now! Haha!

When she finally "let go" there were babies EVERYWHERE! And they were BIG! Lovie is really a teeny fish... I can not believe she held SO MANY for SO LONG! When they are released they usually have a yoke sac they live off of (looks like their belly is really big). These no longer had a yoke sac she held them so long! It is like having puppies ready to eat puppy food the first day. And to top it off she was being a really great mom and protecting them so well that is was near impossible to catch her so we could move her back to the main tank.


So, here are her babies. And as predicted they are ugly! Randomly spotted and striped and splotchy on a light yellow background! And there are AT LEAST 30 of them! They are everywhere! She had them about 3 weeks ago, so they are getting big! I could not get a great picture of them. But here is just a teeny area of the tank and there are about 13 fish in this picture, so that just shows how many we have!




Here is a view from above! I love to watch them grow! I love to watch them swim around and get braver the bigger they get. When they are old enough where their patterns are more distinguishable I am going to keep some of the not-as-ugly ones and give the rest to a pet store. Whenever Levi complains about how ugly they are, I remind him he was the one to buy me Lovie in the first place, so it is his fault!

I just wanted to share with you guys the joy of being a fish grandma to a nice healthy brood of over 30 babies! If anyone in the Charlotte area wants some Chiclids, feel free to let me know!