When I first saw these fish everyone thought they were a color morph of Lamprologus brichardi. The 'daffodil' was a beautiful yellow coloration with a white/silver edging to the fins compared to the very light body coloring of the brichardi. The one distinquishing marking is the black mark around the gill plate. On the daffodil's, the two lines are vertical, while on the brichardi the forward one is vertical and the second line is horisontal. As of this writing it still is not known if the daffodil is just a color morph of the brichardi.
I purchased a breeding pair of daffodil's from a friend in December 1996. This pair was approximately three inches in length. The male and female looked exactly alike in finnage and coloration. They were definitely a spawning pair because the friend took the parents right out of their tank of month old fry. It wasn't long before I was getting babies as well. This pair proved to be a very prolific pair indeed.
The male after one and a half to two years should develop a 'nuptial hump' on his forehead and this is the easiest way to sex your pair.
The main action of the parents that caught my interest was that their first spawn would contain only a few fry, approximately 10 or 20 at most. The second spawn would consist of 30 - 40 fry. The third batch would contain approximately 50 - 60+ fry.
Now for the interesting behavior; The parents would spawn a small batch of fry the first time. Once the pair laid another spawned the first fry became the 'babysitters' for mom and dad and the pair would spawn again and this batch would be even larger because the older fry were there to 'raise' these as well. This was all taking place in a 10 gallon tank. Each time the pair had three spawns in the tank I would remove the adults to another tank to start all over.
I don't have photos of these fish spawning. They always spawned in a ceramic snail that was their 'house' and I wouldn't know they had spawned until I saw free swimming fry outside the snail. They were approximately a sixteenth of an inch in length and stayed near the bottom of the tank. The parents really didn't seem to give much notice of the fry once they were out of the fry left the security of the home. This is when the parents would start thinking about spawning again.
I started observing the fish daily. On January 10th, 1997, I was finally able to tell by their behavior the pair had spawned. I took the snail out of the tank, I wasn't attacked by either parent and looked inside. I did see a clutch of green eggs inside towards the back of the snails tail. I gently scraped the eggs out with my right fore finger into a container that had fresh water in it. I counted a total of 221 eggs! This was the third batch in a tank with two other spawns. I put the empty snail back into the tank and the parents immediately went back inside to see if their eggs were still there. After noticing the eggs were gone it didn't seem to bother them any. At two days old one can still see the dark green yolk sac. It took another 3 days to absorb their yolk sacs. Once they became free swimming I began feeding them newly hatched brine shrimp. When the fry were approximately two weeks old I began adding finely ground flake food to their diet.
I no longer have this breeding pair. I really hated selling them at the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association club auction somewhere in the middle of 1998.
Now I have an albino pair that I am hoping to get more photos of the eggs. I was originally using a piece of pvc pipe for their house and when they spawned I could not tell if they had spawned or not. I have removed several fry from their 20-gallon tank and am watching the parents to be able to tell when they spawn so I can take the eggs and take many photos of the eggs and fry. The problem I had with the pvc pipe was it was white inside, I could never see any eggs! I took this pipe out and placed a clay bowl shaped house with a whole cut in the front for an entrance in the tank. I hope to be able to now catch them with eggs. I don't know if the albino form still has the green eggs or not. At least not as of this writing.
I no longer have this pair as we sold them before we moved in April, 1999.
References:
Baensch Aquarium Atlas Vol 2, by Rudiger Riehl, Hans A. Baensch, 1997, Microcosm Ltd.