This article is not intended to give you any insight or information on a quick way to spawn Kenyii's. I havetried many times and have failed. Maybe other breeders have been more fortunate than I was.

The Kenyii's habitat is from Lake Malawi in Africa. The male is a luminous yellow in colour with egg spots on the fin. The female has a sky blue base coloration with six black cross bands. The male, especially, has an extremely aggressive behaviour towards his own kind and other species.

Their tank should have deep gravel, as the male likes to dig down and form pits. Also extensive rock work should be built for caves and crevices. Vegetation is not necessary.

Spawning requirements are a temperature of 77-80 degrees, water 10-20 of GH and a PH of around 8 (I add 1 tablespoon of salt to every 5 gallons of water).

Kenyii's are mouthbrooders and will spawn on a flat rock. Up to 50 eggs may be laid and taken into the mouth of the female. The eggs are fertilized by the familiar egg spot method. The eggs remain in the females mouthwhile developing for about 20-25 days at 79 degrees F. After this time the fry are released and you will notice that they are blue in colour. They can be fed crumbled flaked food, brine shrimp and frozen green vegetable mixture.

I made a few attempts to spawn Kenyii's by placing a male and female into a tank. All requirements were met. Each time the male chased the female around and dug and disrupted the whole tank - I gave up!

Another try was made again, this time the pair seemed to get along better, but again the male continuously dug down to the bottom of the tank under the rocks and filter. Gravel was piled high against the tank walls. If hecould have dug through the glass bottom, I'm sure he'd still be digging. Again I was ready to give up. For a last resort I put in another female, just to see what would happen. Well, I found out! Three days later themale was dead. Just like that! I still don't know why, so he was deposed of and the females transferred to other tanks.

The empty tank sat there for 4-5 days with no heat or filtration. Finally I decided to clean it out. Gravel was mashed around and taken out with the dirty water. When I got to the bottom of the messy, dirty tank, my eyescaught sight of one poor little blue fry. My heart sank! What had I done! Frantically I sifted through all the gravel left in the tank and what I had taken out but I couldn't see anymore fry. I saved the one little lonely fryI had but knew that I had blown it again. That was it I gave up.

So how does this story have a happy ending? Well, in another 50 gallon tank there are a male and female Kenyii swimming around with lots of other africans. A week after the last unfortunate occurrence, I waspreparing to feed them and noticed the male Kenyii was defending his territory at the right side of the tank. He refused to allow another fish to come to his side so they were all huddled at the other end. The female stayed at the bottom, swimming under the rocks. Immediately I knew something was going on so I grabbed a pail and large syphoning tube and in the tank it went. The male nipped at it again and again. My eyes skimmed over the bottom of the tank and then yes!!! I saw a small blue fry so I syphoned it out. Slowly one by one each stone was removed from the tank and as each small fry scurried away I syphoned them out. Eventually I retrieved 9 cute little blue fry. No more could be found.

Oh happy day! Finally I had Kenyii fry. They are now two months old. A couple are beginning to lose the blue colour and have taken on a slight yellow tinge. Soon it will be easy to distinguish the males from thefemales.

Now I can sit back, wait and watch for them to do it again. That's my story on how I spawned Kenyii's.