Cichlasoma octofasciatum

These fish are originally from Guatemala, Yucatan, and Honduras in their bogs and slow moving waters. They were discovered in 1904 by Umlauff Pet Stores in Hamburg, West Germany. The fish prefer water conditions slightly acid to neutral-medium hard (pH of 6.5-7.0, a hardness of 8-12° C at a temperature between 26-28° C.

A friend of mine loaned me a breeding pair of Jack Dempsey's in 1993 and I set them up in a 55 gallon tank with a 'Fluval 3' power filter and three rocks shaped as a cave for them to spawn under. These two fish were the same size and almost the same coloring. The male was much more brightly colored with his beautiful blue/green scale colorations over his whole body and into all his fins. The male also had longer anal and dorsal fins. Their total length was about seven and a half inches.

Five minutes after setting this pair up in this tank they started getting very active.

Another week passed and I could easily see the females ovipositor was showing. As I watched the pair, I noticed they were digging the "holes" in the sand, that I had made under the rock formation, even larger. I was totally taken aback watching the male. There were two pits. One the male was working in and the other the female was working in. I started calling the male "The Bulldozer" because he would bury his snout into the sand on the side wall of the pit he was working in and then he would push it up towards the outside of the pit rim and spit out a surprising amount of sand! He was digging in the middle pit while his mate was digging out the pit on the right side. As the male would spit his side of sand over the right 'wall' the female would spit out her mouthful of sand over the left wall! It was hilarious watching these two dump sand into each others pits! After a few days of transferring their sand all over the tank they finally settled on a place to lay their eggs. On the top of their rock cave!

I couldn't believe these two, after all the work they did, they actually decided to spawn on top of the rock cave! The parents took turns fanning their eggs. The egg mass must have been about 6" long and 4" wide. There were a lot of eggs. When one would be taking care of the eggs, mainly the female, the other would be guarding the spawning area, mainly the male. They didn't eat their eggs and only removed the ones that were turning white, which weren't that many. After four more days the eggs began hatching. The pair took turns digging pits again. The pair would transfer their fry every day to different pits they had previously dug all over the tank. I enjoyed watching this huge pair of fish caring for their eggs and newly hatched fry. The eggs took two days to hatch. The parents started moving their new babies from pit to pit a couple times a day. I know there were a lot of fry, but to me when I looked into the pits, they looked just like one huge black mass. One day they would move the fry maybe once. Other days they would move the fry up to 5 times.

Three days after hatching the fry became free swimming. The temperature was kept at 74° F. and the pH was 7.2 and the hardness was 200 ppm. I fed the parents flakes and frozen brine shrimp. Once the fry were free swimming I began feeding them newly hatched brine shrimp. It was difficult getting the brine shrimp to the fry because the parents, especially the male, were very protective and would attack any thing I put into the tank to try and get food into the swarm of fry. After a few days of constantly trying to feed their baby fish, the parents finally decided that this invasion was ok. The fry stayed pretty much in between the parents. It was fun seeing this little black mass actually come up off the bottom of the tank just a little bit and then swoop back down into the pit if mom or dad signaled danger to them. Each day the fry would come out of the pits higher and higher until one day they were swimming between the parents most of the time. When the parents suspected danger (like me looking at them) they would twitch their bodies and the fry would collect between the parents and the male would put himself between the glass and his fry. Sometimes I would go in front of the tank just to watch the parents warn their babies.

If the parents felt the fry were investigating their area too far from them they would twitch their body and the fry would quickly join the cloud between the parents again.

Two weeks later the fry were everywhere in the tank and the parents seemed to have given up trying to keep their little ones in one area. The parents still acted in a protective manner whenever someone came near the tank. (One just has to love the parental care in these fish!) Three months later the fry were approximately one inch long. They do grow quickly and have a huge appetite.

These are quite beautiful fish and worth spawning but do need a large tank. I would recommend anyone who likes large fish and enjoys their parental behavior to try a pair of these. I would also suggest purchasing at least six young ones and let them grow up together and let them pair off by themselves. The fish will be much happier this way and the hobbyist, trying to spawn them, will be a lot happier as well because he/she will not have the worries of the fish not being compatible.

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