# Pregnant Kribensis' ?



## chaotrix2

Hey, i just signed up to this forum, mainly to ask a few questions.
I recently acquired a dozen fish from a neighbour which i have identified as kribensis. However i have found a few of the fish to have red bellys. Is this just because they are female / male or are they pregnant like i think they are? 
Thanks


----------



## Guest

Females are the ones with the red bellies. 

Kribs don't get "pregnant", as they are egg layers.....they do get egg bound though, but the red bellies isn't a sign of this.



Welcome to Fishforums.


----------



## chaotrix2

Ah, ok thanks for the reply.
Glad to hear that.. i dont think i could stand seeing the eggs getting eaten by my other fish xD

And thanks for the welcome too


----------



## Guest

The males also have a bit of red on their bellies, but not nearly as dark and colored as the females in that area. Don't be surprised if they do breed. 

Welcome to FF!


----------



## Buggy

If you want to try to raise some fry, put a couple of caves in the tank. 4" terra cota flower pots turned upside down and a hole knocked in the side near the bottom work great. The female will choose a cave and you will see her taking the gravel/sand out and stacking it in front of the cave door. Then the male will spend some time in the cave. In a few days you may see some fry following the parents around. And the parents will whip anything that gets too close.


----------



## chaotrix2

That would be awesome =D I think some of them have already bred in my neighbors tank as many of them are very different sizes. There are already a few hidey holes in my tank so fingers crossed


----------



## chaotrix2

Just out of interest, what are the signs that kribs are egg bound, or are mating?


----------



## Buggy

Well, another way to tell if they are male or female is to look at the dorsal fin (the one that runs down the back). His will be long with a sharp point and the red line will run all the way to the tip. Hers will be a bit shorter and more blunt on the end and the line will stop just short of the tip. All of my females also have a spot near the end of the caudal (tail) fin that looks like an eye. I've heard some males have these to though. Also the males tail will be spade shaped where the females is rounded.

They will pair up and hang together a lot and then they will pick a cave and take turns going in and out and snooping around it. Her belly will get big and turn brighter pink. When she goes in and all you see is her nose sticking out for several minutes at a time and they start chasing every other fish that comes near....it's a pretty good bet she has eggs in there. You will also notice that her belly isn't as big anymore.
If the cave opening is in a position where you can see in with a flash light, look for clusters of jelly-looking dots all over the back of the cave wall. Don't disturb the cave...just peek in. She will most likely go in and try to keep you from seeing in but be patient and look when she comes out to feed. If you don't see eggs, don't worry. Either she hasn't laid yet or they have hatched and are in the gravel in the pit she made in the bottom and not ready to come out yet. 
My two pairs showed spawning behavior for a long time before they actually spawned the first time. I guess this is the "getting to know you" phase. Once my dominant pair had their first successfull spawn she has laid faithfully every 28-30 days for the last 5 months and is doing it again. The other pair have only had one successfull spawn (that I know of) but they still hang out in the cave and do the "courting" game. 

By the way, do you know how old they are? Mine were about 8 months old before they paired up but they may have been late bloomers.

Here are a few pics of my pair and some of their first spawn...

Female









Male









Pair (notice the female in the cave and male guarding her)









Pair guarding the eggs









Young 


















Sorry for the long post.


----------



## chaotrix2

Thanks Buggy, that was a very detailed post - it explained everything i needed to know.  
There's some nice pics of your kribs there  
And to answer your question, they are all different ages and sizes with one, larger, obvious pair of them. 
Using your post i have distinguished that i have 7 female, 5 male and 2 little ones (out of fry stage but by no means full grown)

Once again, thanks that was super super helpful


----------



## Buggy

You are very much welcome. "One is always happy to be of service." lol

What size tank do you have them in? I wouldn't recommend anything less then a 55 gal for two breeding pair because of territory issues. If the one pair start to spawn you may want to move them to their own tank until some of the others pair up.
It sounds like the larger obvious pair may be the parents of all of the others from previous spawns.


----------



## chaotrix2

it is 80 gallons, but it does have 2 golden dojo loach and a khuli loach but they mainly hide and stay out of the way of the kribs  I do have another tank but its only 10 gallons xD


----------



## Kribensis12

You can put a pair of kribensis in a 10g for breeding purposes, but nothing else, and you will have to remove fry. make sur eyou have a good filter and keep up w/ the water changes. "Pregnant" females stomachs will be HUGE, and they will have very rich color's. Do you have any pic's?


----------



## chaotrix2

Hmm, i might put the breeding pair in the 10g, but i want to see how they get along in a larger tank first =P I dont have any pics at the moment, and my digital camera is so bad you wouldn't be able to see anything apart from a load of pixels ...


----------



## Kribensis12

This female krib would be considerd "Pregnant":









I caugth her in the middle of her mating dance.


----------



## Kribensis12

She was almost ready to lay egg's also:


----------



## Jesus=myKing

I have two kribensis that are mated. They laid eggs within the first 10 days I had them. They are really cool. I'm a bit concerned as they seem to chew their food. The tiger barbs and the congo tetra's at the top meanwhile eat all the rest of the food. Any suggestions? I'm trying different food combinations....flakes for the tigers and pellets for the kribs, but again the krib gets one bite each and the rest go to the bottom of the tank.


----------



## lohachata

your kribs are fine...if they weren't they would be dead....


----------



## Jesus=myKing

lohachata said:


> your kribs are fine...if they weren't they would be dead....


Thanks for getting back to me. They have been more aggressively going after the food since I added more tiger barbs. They are working on their 2nd set of eggs now too. Very interesting fish. Love them. do you think 5 tiger barbs is a good number to keep down the aggression between them?


----------

