Think My Kribs Are Starting To Breed.

[raeven]

I have a pair of kribs (male and female), who seem to have taken a liking to each other. Every once in a while I'll see them do their little shimmy dance, but nothing really happens after that. Not that I've noticed, at least.

Today, I was looking in my tank and couldn't find my female anywhere. Turns out she was hiding in this little skull/octopus cave I have, and the male was hanging around outside, hardly ever leaving. I'll admit, curiosity get the better of me, and I just had to take a peek at what was going on in there. Turns out there were a couple little white balls floating around (maybe they were dislodged because of my meddling?). Based on the bit of research I did, seems that it's very likely that this was their first batch of eggs. There weren't very many. Maybe ten or so at the most, judging by what I could see.

This is my first experience with Krib babies, so I'm kind of excited. Hopefully my disturbance of their little cave hasn't messed things up too badly for them.

Strange, though. I always heard that the males will quite actively defend his territory from anything that comes near. So far, that hasn't been an issue. He might chase something off quickly, but that's pretty much the end of it, and he'll go back to standing guard. I've got dwarf frogs that hang around the cave all the time, and I have yet to see them get bullied away. With any luck, maybe this pair won't be so aggressive towards the rest of the tank.

Anywho, wish me luck! And I'd love to hear your stories if you have any

[crazy72]

Congrats, Raeven. Yes, what you described is fairly typical krib breeding behaviour. Both parents will likely get more aggressive with your other fish when the eggs hatch and they have a pod of fry swimming with them. That has been my experience, at least. But you're right, all pairs are different and it's also possible that you won't have much of an aggression problem with these two. I'd wait a couple of weeks before concluding that though.