Female Red Devil Crazy Nuchal Hump Growth

[pelleeklund]

My female RD has been showing all of the signs of breeding with my Jag so I moved all of the other fish from my 220 to spare them the increased aggression. Almost over night she started growing a massive nuchal hump which has me puzzled. Anyone heard of this? I'm wondering if a hormone increase due to to the impending breeding has her head blowing up. Hopefully I can find a before picture to go with these current shots. *Found one, had to go back about 3 months. Either way this entire head development has happened over the course of the last 2-3 weeks, prior to that her hump was non existent.

 

[SomeStonedFish]

I've seen female midevils with a hump. assuming you don't have a pure bred red devil, and really a midevil, this is normal. Just not common. She is indeed ready to breed.

 

[pelleeklund]

I usually trust That Fish Place as far as their integrity with livestock but who knows? Both species are so similar when small maybe this one was a mix or just a straight up Midas. Either way the hump was odd. I understand, for the most part, that the hump development correlates with a certain domination over other tank mates, at least in the males, but she definitely doesn't dominate the male Jag. She has been engaging him more often, but he would never run from her.

 

[pelleeklund]

Still no eggs. I'm adjusting my tank temps by a couple degrees every two days to see if that's what's holding this up. At 82 right now, going to continue dropping it by two. Anyone else have any info on the head swell they could share, I still can't find much of anything to make any sense of it.

 

[ehh]

she aint playing no games.