Today marks thirty-two days since Mama Mbuna laid her ninth spawn; and, as I noted in a previous comment here, sadly, it appears that there have been no survivors from it. I saw the released spawn one time, and since then, not a single fry has made an appearance.

This morning's events seem to confirm my suspicions that they were all lost.

My usual habit is to turn on the aquarium lights around 6:00 AM every
morning. Sometimes I am a little late in doing so, but that is about the
usual time. Depending on what time I went to bed -- if I even went to bed at all -- I will sometimes go back to bed for a few hours after turning on the aquarium lights, as I did this morning.

Well, to my surprise, when I finally pulled myself out of bed again shortly before 11:00 AM, I discovered that Mama Mbuna had already laid her tenth
spawn, and was back in her cave where she was incubating the new eggs. For about an hour and a half after that, she continued to go down to the
dominant male's cave in an effort to lay more eggs, but I had a front row
seat, and nothing came of it. I was hoping to feed her at least one more
time, as I realized yesterday that she was getting quite plump, and would
soon lay her eggs, but, I missed the mark this morning, and she had to go without the extra food.

At any rate, I have no idea how many eggs were laid this time, but
considering the total loss of spawn number nine, I am not holding too much
hope that this latest spawn will survive either.

One thing is obvious. This tank is becoming quite full as these fish
continue to grow, and I am going to have to make some kind of a decision in
the not too distant future regarding how to deal with the situation.



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