Breeding The Lionhead Cichlid By Andrew Boyd
We bought our first Lionheads (Steatocranius casuarius) at a N.S.W. Aquarium Society auction in Sydney. Three males and one female (nearly adult size) for the quite reasonable sum of $12. These were brought home and placed in a 20 gallon holding tank, with other fish bought at the same time.
Convinced that they were brothers and sister, I had no intention of spawning them until I could obtain some ‘new blood’. This came in the form of a magnificent 3.5' male from Karl Puse. The one female and Karl's male were put together in a 20 gallon tank of their own, with a cave (made from rocks), which Richter in his "Dwarf Cichlids" (T.F.H. - and in the club's library), assures readers would make the Lionheads more comfortable. Also provided was a flowerpot, ceramic, with the hole at the bottom enlarged to about the size of a 20-cent piece.
The female was most taken with the flowerpot and immediately took possession of it. The male was seen shortly after, displaying to her and the two entered the flowerpot. As the latter was lying on its rim, hole upwards, the actual spawning was not witnessed. By the next morning, the female was still in the flowerpot and the male had moved back to his cave. Three days after this, I lifted the edge of the flowerpot up enough to shine a torch inside and was greeted by the sight of the female fanning a clutch of eggs, attached to the internal wall. As the male was making no move to assist his mate in any way, he was removed a couple of days later. A week after the spawning, the young hatched, wriggling on the glass floor of the tank.
We used no live foods in the rearing of the young, just bottomfeeder tablets, sinking cichlid food and flake food that had been rubbed between the fingers so as to sink.
The Lionhead is a nice little fish that is ideal for the beginning cichlidist, but it likes its water kept clean and as with most fish, it breeds more readily when fully mature.