2 Females Holding At Once

[Smalleyboy]

I currently have 2 females holding in my mixed tank. One is an ice blue mbuna and the other is a 'Katanga' hap. They have both been holding for approximately 10 days and are both in a 300 litre tank with 13 other mbuna and haps. I have a small seperate 60 litre brood tank into which I intend to move both females in about 10 days as I wish to raise the fry.

My question is can I put both females into the same 60 litre tank or is there a risk that when the second female spits the fry out she would eat either her own or the other fish's fry? I plan to remove the first female from the small tank once she has spat out the fry and don't see her as a risk to her own fry but I worry about what the second female will do?

First time father, so any advice greatfully received.

 

[freddyk]

You shouldn't have much problem keeping the two females in the same tank, just be prepared to remove one if you notice any issues. Are you prepared to take on growing out so many fry though? You'll certainly need more tanks!

 

[Smalleyboy]

The plan is once they reach about 2" in size my local fish shop has said they will take them for sale and I shall keep some of them myself in a larger second tank if necessary. How many fry can you normally expect from a female?

 

[freddyk]

About 10-15 is typical, depending on the size of the female

 

[Smalleyboy]

Many thanks for the reply Freddyk.

I have got the seperate tank set up and have placed quite a large piece of tuffa rock in it. I drilled about 60 holes into the rock so that the young fry have somewhere to hide should one of the females decide to start trying to eat them.