November 28, 2010
Boris and Medea Luna have hatched a small clutch of eggs in the past week. Several days ago I counted 21 wrigglers. The community aquarium in which they reside has a drastically reduced population since last year. The tanks was most likely overstocked and the ecosystem could not handle the numbers. Now, other than the pair of Angelfish, there is a single Blue Ram and a pair of Cardinal Tetras (down from 6 and 10 respectively). I fear for the lives of the wrigglers the minute they start to swim, though nothing has been quite as bad as the bands of marauding fledgelings that for only short periods of time resided in the community aquarium. The hatchlings may get sucked into the filter, or eaten.
This afternoon, Boris and Medea Luna began to lock jaws. The bottom line is that though aquarists have long witnessed the jaw locking of Cichlids including Angelfish, and though it is commonly associated with mated or courting pairs, it is uncertain if this is aggressive behavior, romantic behavior or dominance behavior.
As an aside, Lefty and Digitalis have a small brood that hatched the day before the fry of Boris and Medea Luna.