Just a quick and hopeful note to say that my beautiful pair of Paratilapia polleni have a tank full of fry. Their reproduction is not a simple event. There was much courtship but no fighting or lip-locking at all. Bo danced spirals for the female while standing on his head--it looked like break-dancing. Then Belle produced long strands of frog-like eggs which she protected fiercely in the big clay pot. Bo helped her to distribute the eggs all over the pit he had built, with rocks in a perfect circle, and the bottom of the tank denuded of sand. The eggs wound up everywhere and Belle hid them all over the tank. I was sure she wouldn't be able to keep up with this constant shifting and movement. But after 2-3 days, a definite shape was detectable in the eggs. These two eyes and a tail remained attached to a huge egg sac and the fish-to-be, in this larval state, lay there unmoving for days. I thought the spawn had failed, but after a very long week, give or take a day, the fry started lifting from the bottom and are free swimming as of today. The parents try to keep them down for the night. A lot of them like to stay with the old man in the clay pot. Sometimes Belle takes off for some rest in her strawberry pot where Bo can't enter. But usually they are both posted as sentinals, catching and spitting out their babies and trying to tell them who's boss. Fat chance, if they're anything like their parents. Let's hope this spawn remains successful.