Babies upon Babies!

[pjwilford]

Babies abound!! Here are some peacock cichlid eggs we found and incubated.

Here are some peacock cichlid babies that just started free-swimming:

And we have a guppy that is about to BURST!

 

[Demeter32]

So many babies I had a pair of betta splendens just spawn today and I'm raising up an older batch of bettas, 2 batches of OB peacocks and a batch of albino BN pleco fry.

Plus I have another OB holding, and the female to the male in my profile picture has a mouth full too. I'm going to let nature take its course for them, I have enough fry to care for!

 

[pjwilford]

Very nice!!

We also have these babes that are almost a week old! :') they grow so fast!

 

[pjwilford]

Ps, sorry for the large pictures in the first post. Just learned how to do the pictures correctly hahah Still nothing from mama guppy (pictured) but I'm expecting it to be verrrryyyy soon.

 

[Built2Prfctn]

Babies abound!! Here are some peacock cichlid eggs we found and incubated.View attachment 90658
Here are some peacock cichlid babies that just started free-swimming:
View attachment 90657
And we have a guppy that is about to BURST!
View attachment 90659

How do you know guppies are pregnant?

 

[Becky Kastelz]

That's a very cool contraption for the eggs, I was wondering how people protect eggs if they are laid in tanks with other fish. Good to know!

 

[trash.binh91]

Beautiful babies!

 

[pjwilford]

How do you know guppies are pregnant?

Belly gets super plump, dark gravid spot (black spot towards anal fin in the pic) gets bigger, sometimes you can see the eyes of the babies in the gravid spot. You'll notice she looks rather "boxy" \___/ type of shape, and that tells me the big day is almost here!

 

[pjwilford]

How do you know guppies are pregnant?

Here are some examples!



Here's the difference between my pregnant female that is deciding to drop a couple each day randomly throughout the tank () and a non-pregnant female:



Here's another pic from the same pregnant guppy I posted earlier. You can see the gravid spot and the boxy shape I was talking about:

 

[pjwilford]

***UPDATE***

Both my guppy (pictured above) and black molly had babies today AT THE SAME TIME!! It was crazy. Here are some pics!

You can see the first two I found when I looked into the little breeder!






32 guppy fry and 12 molly fry! PHEW!! Anyone need any guppies...heh..heh....

 

[pjwilford]

That's a very cool contraption for the eggs, I was wondering how people protect eggs if they are laid in tanks with other fish. Good to know!

Well, my roommate found these eggs. Normally he gets them out of the mouth of the cichlid after about a week or so of it holding them, and he'll put them in this incubator while they absorb the rest of the yolk. These must have just fallen out. I'm not completely sure how he found them. The eggs/babies with yolk sacs need to move around like they do while being held in the mom's mouth while they develop, and the air pump attached to an air stone on the top create a small vacuum. Controlling the air with a t-switch, you can manipulate how smoothly or rough they bounce around, and we keep them lightly moving.

With this clutch, we should be able to watch the development of the fish from embryo stage, which is really cool!

 

[Demeter32]

Keep an eye on the tumbling eggs, I think I see a couple off-colored ones that may end up getting fungus. Always remove dud eggs to prevent infecting the others.

Odd that the female would spit them out, mine will even hold infertile eggs until they're rotting before spitting them. Good thing you found them before they were eaten, I know my cichlids wouldn't leave stray eggs alone.

 

[Colin_T]

Odd that the female would spit them out

Normally he gets them out of the mouth of the cichlid after about a week or so of it holding them

They are milking the female, taking the eggs from her before they are developed.

This is not something I recommend because fish learn from each other. Baby fish learn to be good parents from their own parents. If you artificially rear baby cichlids and they don't get parental brood care, the babies lose the knowledge and quite often become egg eaters or spit the eggs and eat any babies.

It happens all the time with angelfish from Asia. The eggs are separated from the adults as soon as they are laid. This encourages the parents to lay again and provides more eggs to hatch and grow up. Unfortunately the baby angelfish have no idea how to look after eggs or young so when they breed, they eat their eggs and young.

There is no reason to artificially rear any cichlids unless the parents die or can no longer care for them.

 

[pjwilford]

They are milking the female, taking the eggs from her before they are developed.

This is not something I recommend because fish learn from each other. Baby fish learn to be good parents from their own parents. If you artificially rear baby cichlids and they don't get parental brood care, the babies lose the knowledge and quite often become egg eaters or spit the eggs and eat any babies.

It happens all the time with angelfish from Asia. The eggs are separated from the adults as soon as they are laid. This encourages the parents to lay again and provides more eggs to hatch and grow up. Unfortunately the baby angelfish have no idea how to look after eggs or young so when they breed, they eat their eggs and young.

There is no reason to artificially rear any cichlids unless the parents die or can no longer care for them.

Well, reason being it's a tank full of cichlids. They will be eaten by everyone else in the tank. Mouthbrooders will incubate their young in their mouth until they are ready to be spit out and once they are out, they are on their own. There is no parenting or care beyond this. It's our only option, and really, the only option for the baby fish's survival. It is what it is. To me, the sole act of keeping them alive, SAFE, and healthy are the only "rules" to live by, and I will take your recommendations as just that - "recommendations."

We take every precaution we can given the resources we have...hence the incubator to keep them moving and safe from being eaten in this situation. It is VERY non-typical that eggs come out like this. Usually when they are separated from the female, they are practically fully formed with little to no egg sack to absorb. Is the separating process stressful for the fish? Absolutely. Though, do you think a guppy pushing out between 30 and 70 babies at a time once a month is stressful? For sure! It's nature's way, and we always do everything with the utmost care.

 

[Built2Prfctn]

***UPDATE***

Both my guppy (pictured above) and black molly had babies today AT THE SAME TIME!! It was crazy. Here are some pics!

You can see the first two I found when I looked into the little breeder!
View attachment 90672

View attachment 90673

View attachment 90674

32 guppy fry and 12 molly fry! PHEW!! Anyone need any guppies...heh..heh....

My guppy is about to burst to!!! Should I remove her from the tank before she gives birth? Not sure what to do now lol