Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

[Ryan]

I've been keeping several species of Geophagus for the past six or seven years. I often keep them in groups of four to six fish per species, and I usually keep at least two different species of geo per tank. I've bred a few species of them now, and I've never had a geo spawn outside of its species. Most other seasoned geo keepers haven't reported this, either. There have been exactly three reports of supposed geo hybridizing that I could find online, but they only showed the occasional spawning video or pictures of an adult fish that was supposedly a cross. I'm a "seeing is believing" kind of guy and I am usually highly skeptical of South American cichlid hyrbids because they do not do so as readily as Central American cichlids.

That made it a bit of a surprise when, a few days before Christmas, a young female Geophagus sp. 'Orange Head Tapajos' started flirting with a male Geophagus parnaibae that I've had for several years. He is the last of his original group, as the rest have slowly died out. I've left him in my 150 gallon community to live out the rest of his days, and his overall health and condition looked fairly poor, so I expected to wake up and find him floating any day. Instead, after a couple days of courting, he actually did spawn with the female orange head.

My theory is that there are no male orange heads in my group of four, and the female decided she needed to pair with someone. Where there's a will, there's a way, I guess.

[Ryan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

The first thought was, "Okay, these eggs aren't fertile." I decided I'd give the parents a shot anyway to see what happened.

Immediately there was a dispute. Geophagus are mouthbrooders, but orangeheads are delayed mouthbrooders (taking up the fry after they hatch into wrigglers) and parnaibae are immediate mouthbrooders (collecting the eggs as soon as spawning ends). The male was going behind the female, collecting eggs to chew on, and she seemed to think he was eating them which caused her to start attacking him. To calm them down and give the eggs a shot, I pulled the entire flowerpot and put it in a 20 gallon growout tank.

In two days I had little black tails wriggling.

About 90% of the spawn fungused over but I ended up with 13 fry. I think this may be for two reasons: 1) The female is very young and this is her first spawn, and 2) The male is quite old now and doesn't seem in the best health. I think both may have contributed to the low fertility rate.

[Ryan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Within a week the fry were growing and eating, but not without a few odd behaviors.

First, they rejected baby brine for two or three days. They would bite it and immediately spit it out. I've never had cichlid fry do that. I didn't see full orange bellies for a few days and assumed they were weak and would starve to death. Eventually they started eating.

The weirdest part was their swimming behavior. Most geos stay near the bottom of the tank, horizontally, and this is pretty typical of most cichlid fry. These guys stayed at the surface of the water, bobbing around in the current. Most of the time they either hung vertically in the water or were completely upside down. I thought they were doing the whole whirling death thing that fry sometimes do, but if I disturbed them they would right themselves. This behavior eventually turned into the fish swimming sideways. You can kind of see in this video through the net breeder that the fry keep their bellies pressed against the vertical sides of the net and their heads usually pointed up at the surface. You can also see them darting up to the surface for whatever reason. It's the only time I've seen this in geos and I'm thinking this batch of fry is... not quite right.

[Ryan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Today marks two weeks free-swimming. They look like little Geophagus now, and the finally learned to swim like geos, too. The pictures and video wash it out, but they have little cream colored stripes. I have no idea what to expect in terms of body shape or coloration, because the two species are fairly different in those areas.

[Ryan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

I should probably clarify that I don't usually approve of hybrids. I don't like the idea of hybrids getting out into the hobby because they muddy the gene pool and make it impossible to know if your fish are pure or not. This is a big problem with Central American cichlids, and there are constantly people asking on cichlid forums, "What fish is this?" There's usually no way of knowing. I've never really cared for that.

These particular geos are a little project I'm growing out just for the sake of documenting them. It's been rarely reported in the hobby and it's interesting to see how they develop. These fish will not leave my house, and I will not be raising any future fry from this oddball pairing. But it may still be an interesting thing to follow for those who are geo fans.

[zergling]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Good luck with the oddball project, thanks for documenting and sharing!

[brewmaster15]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Ryan,
I absolutely Love this love this! I don't care too much myself for hybrids same as you, however Theres alot to be learned from unexpected crosses like this...particularly it shows that these two species probably are not that far apart genetically.

Keep the posts coming!
al

[Disgirl]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Very interesting Ryan, and well done with the pics and timeline of the process. Let us know how they do as they grow? I agree with you about the hybrids. You are right to not plan to send them out into the world.
Barb

[YSS]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Very cool. I do think that these type of breeding behavior happen in nature and that's how we ended up with so many different species. Good luck with the babies!

[jmf3460]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

very interesting Ryan, good luck and Im sure in your care they will turn out beautiful. Hey in the first video, what is the fish at 1:05?? Laetacara??

[Second Hand Pat]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

These guys are already starting to look like little geos Ryan. Most curious to see how these guys grow.
Pat

[John_Nicholson]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Great job on documenting this. Like you I am against hybrids as a general rule but I do think this will be interesting to watch.

-john

[Ryan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Thanks everyone. I didn't think it was possible. I've even said as much here on Simply a few years ago when someone asked me if they had to worry about their Geos hybridizing. But I've definitely been proven wrong. I do think, though, that given adequate males and females of their own species, this probably wouldn't have happened.

very interesting Ryan, good luck and Im sure in your care they will turn out beautiful. Hey in the first video, what is the fish at 1:05?? Laetacara??

That's a sub-adult Aequidens sp. 'Janero Herrera.' It's basically a Peruvian version of Aequidens diadema with slightly different coloration and supposedly it's a mouthbrooder unlike diadema. They are large-growing acaras and I am finding out that they are much more aggressive than I would have guessed. They are always beating each other up and going after other fish in the tank, including the geos. I want to grow them out to their adult size because the color is beautiful (you should Google them) but even at 5" they seem to have "outgrown" my 150.

[Ardan]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Great Thread Ryan!! It will be interesting to see them grow out.

Ardan

[Discus-n00b]

Re: Geophagus hybrids... Oops!

Excellent Ryan, interested to see how these turn out! Btw, still asking about that Geophagus parnaibae I had the guy hasn't responded yet.