Hello all,
My queen arabesques are still housed in the 90L tank together with my ancistrus (didn't manage to get rid of the neolamprologus brichardi in the other tank yet). I have them for about a month now.
Since the moment I got them, I never saw them often, and even when I saw them (between the rocks)they would sit for hours and hours without even moving. The male very quickly took in the cave where my ancistrus male spawned (a "natural" cave -> space between some rocks), the ancistrus male took another space between rocks then to defend as his cave. The female queen has about four favourite places in the tank where she hangs out. But, until two days ago, seeing them move was a very rare event. At night they were active. I always feed them before I go to bed, the tanks lights switch off at 9 PM, and when I turn on the light in the basement (that's where my tanks are) for feeding them, I usually find them somewhere in the "open".
Two days ago I made some changes. I put two white sheets of paper on the acryl cover, under the lightbulb. Now my tank is a LOT less lit. Before the tank already had quite dim lighting, but now it's even darker. I also did a 80% water change the same day, dropped the temperature from 27°C to 25°C and added a second powerhead.
From that evening on, my queen arabesques are very active. The male has swept away all the sand between his rock-cave, his cave is bare-bottomed now. He is sticking out his tail and "waving". The female acts restless as well, she crowls around the tank and regularly bumps in to the male when he is sitting with his lower body out of his cave. The interesting thing about it is that my ancistrus male has his cave very close to that of the queen arabesque. The males can touch each other with the tips of their tails if they want to. The gravid ancistrus female is, of course, also hanging out in that corner of the tank. The males (and females too) seem to get along very well, I never saw them fighting or threatening each other. This was the story, now my questions:
1) What does mating behaviour of queen arabesques look like? Is what my fish are doing looking as if they want to mate?
2) My female does not look very fat, she definitely fattened up a little since I got her, but she really is not looking as fat as my ancistrus female. Is it too early for them? Is it possible that my queens go a little bit crazy because my ancistrus are preparing to breed, regardless of wether they are ready yet themselves? The fish are about 7cm total length.
Regards,
Wim
PS: I almost forgot: Merry Christmas to all!!!
