Capturing Fry

[chocolicious]

Anyone got any tips for capturing fry from the cichlid parent's? The fry aint swimming high enough for us to catch with a net it's nearly impossible or we'll just be picking up one or two.

Will taking the fry off the parents cause them to not want to breed anymore or will they just swiftly move on with the next batch.

 

[mattlee]

try using a turkey baster to suck them up with

these are also usefull for target feeding too

 

[star4]

Or a large (best clear) tube and syphon them out. Once the fry are removed the parents will breed again, and again, and again. BUT if the female is not ready the male can harrass her to a state of exhaustion and in the worse case kill her, so just be careful and maybe have another tank available to seperate them if needed.

 

[Haych]

i agree with Star, but also if you dont remove the fry the parents will eat them when ready to breed again as they dont more babies to care for than necessary!

 

[chocolicious]

Or a large (best clear) tube and syphon them out. Once the fry are removed the parents will breed again, and again, and again. BUT if the female is not ready the male can harrass her to a state of exhaustion and in the worse case kill her, so just be careful and maybe have another tank available to seperate them if needed.

We tried to Syphon but only picked two up and that was only by going really close to the gravel.

 

[VictorMeldrew]

try using a gravel cleaner, its a lot wider

 

[england]

If its that difficult, i would remove the parents first,then go catch the fry,or leave fry in that tank and get another for the parents

 

[jourdy288]

Be careful with the syphon method, I've heard of fry getting injured with it.

 

[chocolicious]

Didn't think catching fry would be so difficult, Is there any minimum period of time when we should catch them, I mean can they survive very early on as like first day they are free swimming.

We have a specialist tank with 3 baby platy's in which are a week old when we tried put a new baby in they attacked it so we had to quickly pull it out.

 

[nmonks]

Will taking the fry off the parents cause them to not want to breed anymore or will they just swiftly move on with the next batch.

The latter. Essentially the presence of fry triggers rearing behaviour while preventing spawning behaviour. (Comparable to how breastfeeding inhibits ovulation, up to a point at least.) Once you remove the fry, the parents will attempt to spawn. Adjusting water temperature down can slow this down, spacing out breeding events, but do this with regard to their thermal tolerances of the species in question. And, as mentioned already, males will be ready to spawn before the females, and this can cause problems. Make sure the female has hiding places, lots of food, etc.

Cheers, Neale

 

[chocolicious]

We've just took around 65% of the fry out of the tank and are putting them in a different tank, Hopefully the Honduran's will still look after the rest of the fry.

Not sure if it's a good idea to take the rest out or not.

 

[chocolicious]

Can't believe these Honduran's had more than 80 babies it's insane, Good job we have 4 tanks.