# Red Zebra Fry?



## bingerz (Mar 3, 2011)

Hi, my red zebra just had some fry and they are different colours. some are dark with stripes on them, some are orange. i wonder if its because the darker ones are male and the orange are female? the only other fish i have in the tank that are dark are fuellebornis and I've never heard of fuels mating with red zebras before. i've never seen red zebra fry and i'm fairly new to having my fish bred. take a look, those who have bred and have seen red zebras fry before, chime in! let me know...thanks!


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## MOLOTO (Jun 8, 2010)

Congrats on the fry! To be honest, as long as they are mouth brooders they can hybridize. I have even seen Lake Victorians cross with Malawi mbuna, so a M. estherae x L. fuelleborni hybrid may actually be the case. Are your fuelleborni males more dominant than the red zebra male? Sometimes hyper dominant males may spawn with females of a different species.


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## bingerz (Mar 3, 2011)

i have two male fuels (gray), 1 male OB fuel (i think? i vented my OBs...but for some reason, last time i looked, he looked female? had the OB's for a while with no fry.) and 1 male estherae, 2 male callanos pearl....but they're not the same paler, so i doubt they're theirs. the gray fuels are dominant over each other, but not towards the other fish in the tank. the male red zebra seems like he's more dominant overall to everyone in the tank. I'm hoping the fry are his...guess only time will tell, but i have a hunch they're someone else's' though....i don't think red zebras whether male or female would be that dark and have stripes. my fuels don't have vertical stripes like that though, but they seem closer in colour to the OB male fuel. i guess maybe he is male, if they end up looking like him.


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## -DC- (Apr 21, 2010)

I'd say your male OB fuelleborni got to the female, it's not an uncommon mix i've seen it several times. 

It's also possible to have more then one male breed with a female at a time so the more yellow ones might be pure only time will tell as they mature, if they are hybrids it will be fairly easy to tell because the Fuelleborni nose shape should be present in a zebra-fuelleborni cross. 

Oh as for the stripes you mentioned, i've seen many hybrids and even intentionally crossed several species and noticed a trend in hybrids displaying more pronounced striping pattern in comparison to both pure parent species, it's a trait clearly shared by a common ancestor to all rift lake cichlids. 

-DC-


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## bingerz (Mar 3, 2011)

thanks for the input DC!! sorry it's been a while to get back to you on it. the fry are doing fine and getting bigger. i've noticed with these guys that they're more active, more jumpy, i guess..than the fuelleborni batch that i had.


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