UPDATE:
Well - there are still some fry that the female adult ("Mildred") is guarding fervantly. I've seen her fighting off the male a lot the last few days - battling quite a bit with him which seemed to have given her a sore mouth from all the ramming into his side. I would say that there is now only about a third of the amount of original fry, so my guess is that the male is eating some off, which is why he's getting a beating from his missus!
Yesterday, I went to my LFS and explained the situation and how the fry net didn't work at all. Hey presto - a solution was found - they had in stock a plastic box (a breeder cage) which was the perfect answer.
It's about 7" long and I removed the internal separators so that it is just like a mini-tank. It has it's own spray bar, airstone and a lid. It fixes to the inside of the main tank with suction caps. I put a little gravel at the bottom, floated some plants in it - and then managed to catch 5 fry to put in there.
It's absolutely the perfect solution. There's no way that George or Mildred can harm the fry within the mini-tank. They can see them swimming around in there, and stare at them a bit, but after a few attempts at trying to grab them and hitting against the plastic walls, they have given up now.
I'm so pleased! The little fry are doing well and seem happy in their new, private accommodation. I've now moved on from feeding them the liquid fry food to the Liquifry powder stuff for fry.
So now it will be interesting to see if any of the fry in the main tank, presently being guarded by Mildred, will survive to adults or not.
If they do and the 5 fry in my mini tank also survive - then, oh dear - I will probably be back on here asking if anyone wants any gorgeous pink convicts (they don't grow large like the normal convicts as they are Short-Bodied Pink Convicts, so you don't need a huge tank. I've had this pair for almost a year and they are still about the same size - the male is 2.5", may have grown half a cm, if that). But I have a feeling the fry in the main tank will be eaten in the next week or so...
Anyway, so far so good - Athena
Athena
Well - there are still some fry that the female adult ("Mildred") is guarding fervantly. I've seen her fighting off the male a lot the last few days - battling quite a bit with him which seemed to have given her a sore mouth from all the ramming into his side. I would say that there is now only about a third of the amount of original fry, so my guess is that the male is eating some off, which is why he's getting a beating from his missus!
Yesterday, I went to my LFS and explained the situation and how the fry net didn't work at all. Hey presto - a solution was found - they had in stock a plastic box (a breeder cage) which was the perfect answer.
It's about 7" long and I removed the internal separators so that it is just like a mini-tank. It has it's own spray bar, airstone and a lid. It fixes to the inside of the main tank with suction caps. I put a little gravel at the bottom, floated some plants in it - and then managed to catch 5 fry to put in there.
It's absolutely the perfect solution. There's no way that George or Mildred can harm the fry within the mini-tank. They can see them swimming around in there, and stare at them a bit, but after a few attempts at trying to grab them and hitting against the plastic walls, they have given up now.
I'm so pleased! The little fry are doing well and seem happy in their new, private accommodation. I've now moved on from feeding them the liquid fry food to the Liquifry powder stuff for fry.
So now it will be interesting to see if any of the fry in the main tank, presently being guarded by Mildred, will survive to adults or not.
If they do and the 5 fry in my mini tank also survive - then, oh dear - I will probably be back on here asking if anyone wants any gorgeous pink convicts (they don't grow large like the normal convicts as they are Short-Bodied Pink Convicts, so you don't need a huge tank. I've had this pair for almost a year and they are still about the same size - the male is 2.5", may have grown half a cm, if that). But I have a feeling the fry in the main tank will be eaten in the next week or so...
Anyway, so far so good - Athena
Athena
