Earlier today, to my pleasant surprise, and quite unexpectedly, I discovered
a pair of mbunas spawning in the sandy area near the front of the tank. It turns out that one of Mama Mbuna's fry -- a light neon-blue fish about three inches in length -- is actually a female. As of this hour, she is still
holding the eggs in her throat, so we'll have to wait and see how she does
with her first spawn.

Of course, there is a potential problem here, because the fish she mated
with -- a gorgeous fellow -- is either her brother, or at least her half brother. To my knowledge, other than the four large males, all of the other fish that are in the tank are Mama Mbuna's fry. Going by its size, this particular female probably belongs to one of Mama Mbuna's earliest spawns.
In fact, she isn't much smaller than Mama Mbuna herself.

One thing that I am definitely discovering with the passage of time, is that there are clearly more females in the tank than I at first realized. There
are now at least three confirmed females -- they've all spawned -- and I am relatively certain that there are at least three more.

Something else which I have also noticed -- which I may have mentioned
before -- is that since I redesigned the tank a few days ago, all of the females are more or less shoaling together -- as they would do in the wild
-- and they are sporting more yellow in their bodies as well.

There is no absence of excitement in this tank. :)


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