brooding

[sceptre]

Hi everyone,
I'm new here and majorly unexperienced when it comes to anything fish.
Our "fish guy" just came by to do his regular thing, and as he left he let us know one of the fish was "brooding"... I didn't wanna seem ignorant so i smiled and pretended I knew what he was talking about. When he left I did a little research, found out what that meant, and went to see. Yup, she's got a fat mouth going on.

Issue is, it's a fairly large company tank (500 gallon I'd guess) with about 25 cichlids in it. This is the first time we've had any "brooding" going on.
There are quite a few animal lovers here who would hate to see these baby fish get swallowed up once the mother releases them from her mouth.

I checked out the pinned topic in this forum but I still have a few questions.
For one, would you recommend getting one of those net-type things that go inside the regular tank to hold the babies, or a seperate tank all-together.
The only other tank we have is a 200 gallon that's not being used in the boardroom. Is that at all useful? Putting the babies in thta qouldn't be a problem, unless it's too big for them.
Can these babies stay in the square netting for very long, and how long until they can be released with the other fish in the 500 gallon tank?
I've also read alot about purging the mother, and how it can stress the fish to the point of death. What does that help? I'd rather just wait until she releases them so as to not stress her at all...

I'm planning on heading to the fish store and buying some of the netting and putting the brooding fish in it tomorrow, just in case.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I guess for now I'll continue with my research

 

[semper fi]

first of all do you know what type of mouthbrooder she is?

in a large community tank, it might be a good idea to seperate til she spits the fry. the holding female is pretty much defenseless. also she may hold up to three weeks, during which time she will not eat. some will take small bits of flake, but not many will. have heard arguments that this is for the hatched fry and not for her though.

you could do a breeder net. a smaller tank like a 10 would be a better choice though. you can let the female recover a few days after she spits the fry. then move her back. the fry then can stay in there as a grow out tank til they are big enough to add to the community.

do you know what else is in the tank?

by purging i beleive you are referring to stripping the female. basically you open the females mouth and remove the fry into a tumbler. stimulates the female tumbling the fry. once the fry are hatched you remove them from the tumbler. is very stressful on the female, but after a day or two she can be added back to the community tank.

hth