Help With Convict Chichlids Control

[aharen]

My 13 year old received a 30 gallon tank from his grandparents and was allowed to choose his own fish...perhaps you can see where this is going...he chose two male convicts but soon discovered that one was male and one was female. Since then they have bred several times. He also has a smaller tank where he put two or three sets of fry. The original breeding pair are doing their best to keep the population down even though they keep laying more eggs but the 50 some odd fry in the 15 gallon tank are obviously an issue.  No local pet stores that we can find are interested in them and we haven't been successful in offering them on Craigslist plus we would rather not continue the cycle of uncontrollable breeding that may continue in someone else's aquarium. We can't afford to get any more equipment and I don't want to run the risk of getting a bigger tank only to have more breeding. So, are there any natural predators that we can introduce and eventually move into the thirty gallon tank?
 
Thanks.

 

[Wills]

Hi its a really common problem with fish like these - its quite unfortunate that none of the shops are willing to take them either... in a 30 gallon tank you are very limited as to what you can keep that wont be killed by the parents when they start breeding. Im thinking along the lines of a small plec like a Bristlenose but dont get any of the common ones as they will outgrow the tank by a long long way.
 
These will attempt to eat the eggs which will in turn help stop them hatching.
 
Though admittedly a better option could be to simply remove the eggs before they start to hatch either lift out the rock or decor they lay the eggs on and destroy the eggs or if they lay eggs on the glass use the syphon to remove them.
 
Before you add any substantial numbers of fish to the tank you would be wanting to look at a bigger tank at least 4 foot long then a school of hardy barbs would be a good option.
 
Wills

 

[aharen]

Thanks!