Electric blue acara fry

[Guyb93]

I hve eba fry !!! I noticed breeding Behavior a few weeks ago and though nothing of it on Wednesday I moved them tanks , I checked the tree cave they had claimed didn’t see eggs so thought again nothing of it today I have fry , I can’t see exactly how many off the video my partner sent me I will check soon as I get home from work , from the video the mom... or dad is doing a good job collecting them and returning them to there cave , my question is do I move them out ? I have convicts in there and my eba are not shy to stand there ground dispute being smaller , do I let nature take its course or intervene

 

[Wills]

Cool that makes things interesting!

If they have made it to the fry stage that is a good sign as the other fish could have tried to eat the eggs. Raising the fry is upto you, need to bear in mind this could become a monthly occurance so you would need a plan of how to raise the fry. They need large regular water changes as they will be throwing out loads of growth hormones right now.

Just need to keep a really close eye on things as this is the riskiest stage of a cichlid tank, you dont know how mum and dad will behave towards each other it can start out really well but can turn quickly and same with other fish in the tank they can react differently the parents and it can also trigger spawning in other fish too so watch your convicts over the next few days - if they start digging get ready!

Wills

 

[Guyb93]

Cool that makes things interesting!

If they have made it to the fry stage that is a good sign as the other fish could have tried to eat the eggs. Raising the fry is upto you, need to bear in mind this could become a monthly occurance so you would need a plan of how to raise the fry. They need large regular water changes as they will be throwing out loads of growth hormones right now.

Just need to keep a really close eye on things as this is the riskiest stage of a cichlid tank, you dont know how mum and dad will behave towards each other it can start out really well but can turn quickly and same with other fish in the tank they can react differently the parents and it can also trigger spawning in other fish too so watch your convicts over the next few days - if they start digging get ready!

Wills

I thought this and I’m not equipped for 100s of fry per month , with my water changes , how much per week should I be changing , I feel I’m slightly under stocked with 4eba 2 convicts and pleco in a 500l , and is it possible I would of lost a lot of the fry when they were crawlers ? As when I swapped tanks I didn’t notice any fry or eggs so could I have lost a fair few as crawlers in the gravel

 

[Wills]

Its more to do with the build up of the hormones and other signals (sorry not as technical as some others here) that build up around them, in the wild it would naturally wash away but in a tank it can build up. To do it properly you would need to be changing more than once a week to ensure optimal growth. I had some Honduran Red Points breed and left them as normal in the comm tank and I ended up with about 5 young that grew into fish but they never grew properly.

Its one of the tricky decisions you have to make with cichlids and i dont know if there is a right answer. It is why I want to just stock single gender tanks when I get my cichlid tank set up.

 

[Guyb93]

Its more to do with the build up of the hormones and other signals (sorry not as technical as some others here) that build up around them, in the wild it would naturally wash away but in a tank it can build up. To do it properly you would need to be changing more than once a week to ensure optimal growth. I had some Honduran Red Points breed and left them as normal in the comm tank and I ended up with about 5 young that grew into fish but they never grew properly.

Its one of the tricky decisions you have to make with cichlids and i dont know if there is a right answer. It is why I want to just stock single gender tanks when I get my cichlid tank set up.

I think once I get home from work I’m going to temporarily net and bag all my fish and have a look exactly how many are in there if it’s less than 20 I will let nature take its course if there is more than that I will attempt to suck up into a water bottle and add an air stone and just float it in my tank , it’s the only way I can think of keeping on top of water changes as I really don’t have time to be changing 400l plus every other day but a 2l water bottle I could change as many times as needed , would that work do you think

 

[Wills]

I'm not sure if a bottle would work as you need the water to be oxygenated. Could you get a 10-15 gallon tank? Locate it somewhere that makes water changes easy? You could get a small sponge filter to run in the main tank and move to nursury tank when needed. Once they are at about .5 inches, I think you would be ok to either move them on or introduce them back to the main tank before moving them on.

As its their first brood you might be best to leave them in the tank and see how it goes

Wills

 

[Guyb93]

I'm not sure if a bottle would work as you need the water to be oxygenated. Could you get a 10-15 gallon tank? Locate it somewhere that makes water changes easy? You could get a small sponge filter to run in the main tank and move to nursury tank when needed. Once they are at about .5 inches, I think you would be ok to either move them on or introduce them back to the main tank before moving them on.

As its their first brood you might be best to leave them in the tank and see how it goes

Wills

Yeah I might see how they get on as parents as ifsgoing to be a common occurrence then I would need them to do most of the work anyways , thanks mate always good advise