My Ram Cichlids Laid Eggs?!?

[jayjay55531]

 
I have four (what I THOUGHT were male) ram cichlids in a tank, along with a neon tetra and a plecostomus. There's nothing else in the tank except snails (and I KNOW what snail eggs look like). I just saw today that the back of my small piece of driftwood is covered in eggs! I thought ram cichlids were super hard to breed? I gotta admit, I don't take amazingly good care of them, because the tank is understocked I only do a 25% wc every other week, and I only feed them once a day...so why did this happen? Also, how do I know if they're fertile? 

Also could it have been the neon tetra? If she's a female... but there are no others in the tank so I know that those wouldn't be fertile.

(Obvs it's not the pleco).

If it is the ram cichlids what do I do? How do I raise the fry? How much could I sell them for to my lfs?

 

[Lunar Jetman]

Well if you are sure they're not snails eggs I doubt they are neons as they are egg scatters. Got a picture?

 

[DrRob]

Rams are a pain to sex, so you may well have a pair in there. You'll know generally if you do as they're fairly protective parents, and, being cichlids, tend to the aggressive once breeding. They're also likely to have coloured up a fair bit.
 
As Lunar says, if they've covered the wood then they're not neon eggs, as they don't lay that way.
 
As for caring for them, first thing is to make sure that they don't get eaten, plecs are a good favorite for this. The parents themselves sometimes do as well with first batches.
 
The parents are generally otherwise fairly good at looking after the fry for some time. You're more likely to have trouble with the parents wrecking havoc than you are to need to worry about the fry at first.

 

[jayjay55531]

I'm sure of it now because I see one of the parents guarding them, and they're definitely more colorful than they were. 
Also, the eggs are 1-2 days old but they're all clearish, not tan? shouldn't they be tan? does this mean they're fungused/inviable?

 

[DrRob]

White is bad, clear is OK.