# Albino Red Empress



## Y2KGT

Hi,

I thought I would share my Albino Red Empress experience with you.

I acquired a small group of six juveniles from Hong (tobalman) in February 2013. I grew them out to adult size and ended up with 3 males and 3 females. 

I wanted to remove 2 of the males from the group so I moved one to my Tropheus tank which also had 5 juvenile Yellow Labs but unfortunately the Labs picked on him non stop and the next day he was dead. I decided to move the other male to my all male Malawi tank but this time one of my other peacocks killed him. So now I'm left with 1 male and 3 females in the breeding tank but once again bad luck strikes and 2 days later my biggest female is dead. At this point I realize that these are extremely fragile fish.

The last remaining male is constantly trying to mate with the remaining 2 females so I drop by Finatics on Dixie Road in Mississauga and picked up a group of 5 Congo Tetras to use as dither fish. It seams to work because a few days later one of the females is holding.

Three weeks later I walk by the tank and notice all the fish are going crazy and that's when I realize the female has spit the fry and the other fish are hunting them down and eating them. I grab my net and was able to save 7 fry. I move them to a fry saver to begin raising them.

A month goes by and I notice the same female is holding again. Unfortunately she spit the fry again a few weeks later but this time I wasn't able to save any.

I move the entire group to a new 33 gallon tank I set up just for them. A few weeks later the female is holding again. This time I ask my friend Le to come over the following Saturday (7 days after they mated) to strip the female. He does a great job as usual and I end up with about 20 eggs. We place them in the egg tumbler and put them back into the tank.

Below are videos of the eggs developing over the next 2 weeks until the fry have fully absorbed the egg sack at which point I moved them to a breeder box where they currently get NLS Grow once or twice per day.

I still have all 7 from the first spawn and they're around the 1.5 inch mark.

I'll continue to add pictures of the fry, juveniles and adults.


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## Y2KGT

One day in the egg tumbler. (click on picture to watch the video)


A few days later you can see 2 of the eggs are not viable. (click on picture to watch the video)


One week in the egg tumbler. (click on picture to watch the video)


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## Y2KGT

the father


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## Y2KGT

the mother


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## Chromey

Good and Bad news Paul. 
I still wont attempt these Cichlids.


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## cinsal09

Nothing worse than seeing the fish go nuts over fry. Good luck with these. Protomelas species are one of my favorite. 

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2


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## Y2KGT

Thanks for the comments JP and Cindy.

My friend Le dropped by on Saturday to stip my female and once again I have eggs in the tumbler.

The first batch are now around the .5 inch mark and doing really well on NLS Grow. And I have 6 juvies that are now getting close to 2 inches and starting to colour up.

Soon I'll have more Albino Red Empress than I know what to do with.
--
Paul


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## Scotmando

Nice albino Empress. The albinos definately are a lot more sensitive. 

Cool video too. 
Great idea with the Congo Tetras. 
My red Empress female is holding again. 

Good luck with the fry. Keep us posted


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## Y2KGT

Thanks Scot.

I added pics of the male and female above.

I sold my juvies this past weekend so I was able to move the first batch of fry to the 25 gallon grow out tank and now the fry savers are ready for the new fry this weekend.

--
Paul


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## tobalman

Great job Paul. Any new picture of the breeding male ?


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## Y2KGT

These guys breed every 5 weeks so a couple of weeks ago I was able to get a short video of the breeding dance.





--
Paul


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## TonyT

Wow, stunning fish


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