African Cichlids mating & male and female

Question
Hi I have African Cichlids and I am trying to find out 2 things. How do you tell the females from the males, and how do they mate?

Answer
Hi Jeanette,
 A simple set of questions with a complex answer.  The answer is: it all depends.  It depends on exactly which species you have.  There are for example around 1500 species of cichlids from East Africa and there is no consistent pattern for males versus females.  In some of them, the males and females look very different, e.g., the male might be blue and the female orange. In others, the two sexes look the same. So, it depends. Do you know which species you have?

 As for how they mate, again, it depends. Any of the fish from Lake Malawi, which is what most people keep, are female mouthbrooders, meaning that the female carries the eggs and fry in her mouth.  However, many West African cichlids are substrate spawners and fish from Lake Tanganyika can do any of a number of things.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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