Krib fry deaths

[ferrikins]

My friends Kribs spawned, thye fist time, the eggs failed and went mouldy, they spawn again a couple of weeks ago, they had about 40 fry, but sadly the last few day they been dieing, and one Saturday night they had 3 die.

I asked the normal quetions ect, and they said there water test's are ok, they are the adult are in an 80 litre, the fry are in a small fry tank the is suspended in the main tank and shares the main tank water, there being fed fry food.

There owner is stumped at why they are dieing, and being I have more exsperiance with livebearers, than anything, feel I can't realy help them.

Please if you have any idea's, or more quetions I need to ask, let me know.

Thanks

 

[pica_nuttalli]

tell him to let them loose! i bet that either its starvation from not being interested in the fry food or excess build-up of waste in the breeder net. but its probably too late to do that. supposedly kribs will reject fry if they've been separated too long... i'd tell your friend to setup a 10g fry tank.

for future reference, what other fish are in the 80L? mine spawned in my 60g (~240L) community. the female decided to eat the fry and the male beat the crap out of her before i separated them. up until about a week ago, he was closely chaperoning the fry around the tank and attacking anything within a 30 cm radius. the fry are much larger now and allowed to roam further, although Mr. Krib still fights with the Paradise fish occasionally. no deaths, thankfully, but a lot of fin damage. the guppies and such are pretty well ignored at this point (fry ~1 cm long).

cichlids make great and highly protective parents; after seeing how Mr. Krib herds the babies around looking for food, I'd never recommend separating the fry unless the parents were eating them. but an 80L really isn't large enough to let other fish in a community to escape being attacked. it may just not be feasible for your friend to attempt raising krib fry in such a small tank. if he really wants to try, he needs a proper fry tank--not a breeding net.