Separating a breeding pair

[Guyb93]

Iv been thinking for a while about separating my breeding pair of electric blue acara , as the female is starting to loose size , well not loose size but not growing at the rate of the others in the tank , I put this down to her laying eggs every 14 days and as a fierce mother she won’t leave the eggs to feed so it’s impacting her growth , I have read that electric blue acara are monogamous and pair for life , by removing the male would the female be impacted by this would she greeve and die or just get on with it ? They are very successful at breeding always have swimming fry after laying eggs but they never seem to raise them without eating them is this making her lay more eggs by that I mean if she had fry to raise would she still be lying eggs every 14 days , I’m never going to succeed in raising fry my life style is just not suited to constant care hence the thought of separating them

 

[Wills]

Hard to say it could go either way. I have had quite a few female cichlids that still lay eggs even in the absence of males. Some breeding pairs can result in the death of one of the partners so some do live on after a partner go (one way or the other) but because you are keeping the female I am not sure how much difference it would make?

She will still grow but at a smaller size because she is putting the energy into breeding but its not a real risk to her or her health. Have they successfully got any of the fry to a reasonable size yet? I would keep them as they are but cull the eggs or fry when you can.

Wills

 

[Guyb93]

Hard to say it could go either way. I have had quite a few female cichlids that still lay eggs even in the absence of males. Some breeding pairs can result in the death of one of the partners so some do live on after a partner go (one way or the other) but because you are keeping the female I am not sure how much difference it would make?

She will still grow but at a smaller size because she is putting the energy into breeding but its not a real risk to her or her health. Have they successfully got any of the fry to a reasonable size yet? I would keep them as they are but cull the eggs or fry when you can.

Wills

She keeps them for a few days then they just disappear, everything lives in semi fear of her because she is the tank boss other than I call the rival female they live at opposite ends of the tank and love sizing up to each other but the rival female is getting big she is growing at a much faster rate she larger than the breeding male now , I mean she isolates for about 12 days while she lays the eggs and then until they are all gone then she will have a week of free swimming before going back to the egg hole as I call it but she always has a hungry look after slight sunken belly for a day or two until I fatten her back up , my reason for keeping the female over the male is I have 3 females and one male , I think , and the male was bought as “wild caught “ but I think is just low grade looks like a standard blue acara with more blue if that makes sense so I would opt to loose him just out of looks

 

[Colin_T]

drop the water temperature to 20C, that should stop them breeding