Keyhole cichlids with fry.

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Richpg

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Hi my keyhole cichlids laid eggs 10 days ago and the fry are now free swimming hearded around by their parents. About the 4th time they have bred but all others failed after a few days. They are in a 25 g cube tank with a single tetra that I can’t catch other fish were moved to another tank. Will hopefully have a good chance of survival. Filtration is via an overflow to rear compartment with sponge filter and return pump.

Any advice especially on food for the fry ? I assume I throw baby brine shrimp in the tank and keep up with water changes.
What about growing them on I will be overstocked massively if they all survive.

Adults seem ultra stressed when I am near the tank but are feeding well on frozen food to try and stop them eating their own fry.

How do I post a video clip

Cheers

Richard
 

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Congrats!!
I assume I throw baby brine shrimp in the tank and keep up with water changes.
Yep, that's what I'd recomend too!
What about growing them on I will be overstocked massively if they all survive.
Usually they don't all survive, but if they do, I guess you'll have to start selling/giving thm away or whatever you want to do with them early! Oh, and welcome to the forum!! Your fish are super cute!!
 
Thanks.
I was thinking of siphoning some of them out but not sure if it’s a good idea to raise them away from parents once they are looking after them. The parents may just eat the ones left in the tank. Have 18 1 month old fry in another tank already that I removed as eggs.

Love the keyhole cichlids. My favourite fish. Kept them 20 +years ago in my first tank before going into marine for 15 +years

Great to see fish looking after their fry.
 
You should let them with the parents. If you siphon some of the fry out, the parents might get stressed and eat the rest of the fry. There's no reason to remove them, as long as the parents are taking care of them!
 
Keyholes. I had a breeding pair that would guard the fry like demons for 23 hours and 50 minutes a day. Then, for 10 minutes, the 2 of them would wander off and swim around the tank. Their tankmates would rush in to pick off fry. They were not the, uhhh, wisest Cichlids I ever kept.

You want to leave the fry with the parents for as long as you can. Parental care instincts are a combination of learning and hardwiring, and fry taken too soon often make lousy parents. I wasn't trying to raise mine, but if I had been they would have been in a cycled tank of at least 20 gallons by 3 weeks of age. The diet would have been live brine shrimp, and bug bites run through a grinder to make a fine powder, mixed with water and fired into the tank via a turkey baster, so these non surface feeders could get the food, A high quality growth flake can also be crushed up, and it will sink.
 
You should let them with the parents. If you siphon some of the fry out, the parents might get stressed and eat the rest of the fry. There's no reason to remove them, as long as the parents are taking care of them!
Will leave them and shh what happens. Have read that the parents turn on the fry when ready to spawn again. Not sure how fast that happens though
 
Keyholes. I had a breeding pair that would guard the fry like demons for 23 hours and 50 minutes a day. Then, for 10 minutes, the 2 of them would wander off and swim around the tank. Their tankmates would rush in to pick off fry. They were not the, uhhh, wisest Cichlids I ever kept.

You want to leave the fry with the parents for as long as you can. Parental care instincts are a combination of learning and hardwiring, and fry taken too soon often make lousy parents. I wasn't trying to raise mine, but if I had been they would have been in a cycled tank of at least 20 gallons by 3 weeks of age. The diet would have been live brine shrimp, and bug bites run through a grinder to make a fine powder, mixed with water and fired into the tank via a turkey baster, so these non surface feeders could get the food, A high quality growth flake can also be crushed up, and it will sink.


Thanks. Will be popping to the lfs to see what food they have. Will they eat flake so young? Can feed microworms but are they too small afte a few weeks
 
Hi does anyone know if this young fish looks ok ? Quite a few of the young fish seem to have red pronounced gills and seem to lack the roundness of the lower jaw ?
B5B17DC8-11FC-41DE-9934-F0B986299BB8.jpeg
 
the young fish with the funny jaw has a genetic deformity and should be euthanise. It is normally caused by inbreeding, eg the parents are related.

you need to do more water changes and bigger water changes due to the large number f fish in the tank. 50% every couple of days would be minimum until you have sold the young.
 
Thanks Colin
Will be a shame to euthanise them but I they won’t get moved on and I don’t have the room. Think it’s about 6 of the 12 that I raised from eggs that are deformed. Could it have been something I did in raising them from eggs?
Hopefully the rest in the main tank raised by the parents will be fine. Will be getting another tank to move some of them in to. Will increase the water changes in the meantime.
Thanks for the reply 👍
 
Poor water quality can cause defects in baby fish, as can excess CO2 in the water, but normally it's just inbreeding.

If the parents are malnourished before breeding they will produce poor quality gametes and you get more defects. Fish that are going to be bred should be fed 3-5 times a day with a variety of dry, frozen and live foods for at least 2 (preferably 4) weeks before breeding. This allows them to produce good quality sperm and eggs and you get more young survive, and fewer deformed fry.

Cichlid fry should always be left with their parents so they can learn brood care, cichlid behaviour and develop normally.
 
Hi Colin,

The parents had been laying eggs every couple of weeks or so and eating them, then rising the fry for a few days before again eating them. I upped the feeding with frozen bloodworm / brine shrimp and dry food 3 times a day (helps working from home :))
Tried looking at the fry in with the parents to see if they have the same deformity but they wont stay still long enough when i get close to the tank :D

How long would you leave them with the parents ? i could set up a separate tank for them but is 10 weeks too soon to move them ? Some are still quite small. Been feeding a mix of BBS and flake which they seem to love.

Thanks


Richard
 
Normally you leave the babies with the parents until the babies swim off on their own and the parents no longer show brood care for the young. Quite often the parents will breed again when they have had enough of the first batch and that is a good time to get them out.

If the fry are 10 weeks old, they should be old enough to move and should be at least an inch long. They should be closer to 2 inches long. If they aren't that big, then you need to feed them more and do more water changes. And maybe increase the water temperature.

Ideal conditions for rearing baby freshwater tropical fish include:
1) water temperature of 28C (82F).
2) feed the babies 3-5 times a day and make sure they look like pregnant guppies after feeding.
3) do big daily water changes and gravel clean the substrate to keep the tank clean.
 
Thanks Colin.
The fry range from half inch to 1 inch, obviously not feeding enough and too low temp at 25C / 76F
Started to do water changes every 2 days and upped feeding and temperature.

Thanks again.
 

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