Fish/bottom Dwellers That Are Not Going To Eat Fry.

[Kevin8688]

Hello I was wondering if there are any fish or bottom dwellers that are not aggressive towards fry. The age range being 1month and below would be cool if you leave any names.

 

[lloyd]

Hello I was wondering if there are any fish or bottom dwellers that are not aggressive towards fry. The age range being 1month and below would be cool if you leave any names.

What kind of fry are we talking and what size tank?

 

[Cazgar]

Most corys won't bother fry.
I've had them in with day old guppy fry & they take no notice of them

 

[psp83]

My fry hang around my Panda Corys, it's like they are using them as guards

 

[FishBlast]

Hoplos seem to guard fry pretty well.
Mine's currently in the process of guarding a fry batch and he will headbutt any swordtail that tries to eat them.
They're swordtail fry.

 

[mhancock]

Odd how fry have to be guarded from their own parents!

 

[Kevin8688]

15G tank and it's some panda platies some blue platies a fry that I'm not sure if it's a hybrid of my red and blue platy some black mollies.

 

[Kevin8688]

Odd how fry have to be guarded from their own parents!

Yeah the parents love to take them into their mouth and not throw them back out lol. I've witness couple fish eat some fry because I couldn't get all my females in the breeders since they all decided to want to give birth at once. The adult fish were having a blast just looking for fry to eat them I had to help fend them of while I tried capturing them, but them running from me didn't help xD.

 

[Kevin8688]

That's pretty amazing how they protect the fry . Would you say it's just him or do you think other hoplos would also do that because I want to put one or maybe two. This way if any fry strays of he can have a little mommy protecting him/her. Not sure if my lfs has them I might have to check, from the photos and research I did they look pretty nice! What type of hoplos do you have not sure if there are different species.

 

[coldcazzie]

Hoplos get too big for a 15g tank. A group of corydoras would be nice though, as long as you aren't already overstocked. What other fish are there apart from the fry?

 

[FishBlast]

That's pretty amazing how they protect the fry . Would you say it's just him or do you think other hoplos would also do that because I want to put one or maybe two. This way if any fry strays of he can have a little mommy protecting him/her. Not sure if my lfs has them I might have to check, from the photos and research I did they look pretty nice! What type of hoplos do you have not sure if there are different species.

I've had 3 different hoplo males do this so I guess it's not just Tzuppy. But the females probably would rather snack on them as none of my two females had fry around/under them.
But I didn't read tank size, yeah 15 gal is too small for hoplos and not sure if tiny ones guard. All my guardians were huge.
My current one is a Thoracata hoplo with some pointy pectoral fins, the others were a bit different (didn't have a black band on the tail, no extensions on the pectoral fin tip and they had a fatter head) but looked like Thoracata though.

I guess you'll have to do with corydoras. If they guard like hoplos (I don't know), the more cories the better. They are related to hoplos too, only smaller in size. Unless you upgrade to something like 20 gal long of 4 feet long or 3 feet at least.

 

[Kevin8688]

Hoplos get too big for a 15g tank. A group of corydoras would be nice though, as long as you aren't already overstocked. What other fish are there apart from the fry?

The 15G tank is just for fry i wanted to put the haplo in my 55G tank. Incase any stray away after the mommy gives birth in the tNk and not the breeder. I might look into corys also, I read that they are a seasonal fish so i might have to wait.

 

[Kevin8688]

Yeah the 15G tank is a fry dedicated tank they wont need much protection from other fry wanted to put the hoplos in the main 55G tank or would that be to small also? :0? I'll make sure I get a male then.

 

[FishBlast]

Yeah the 15G tank is a fry dedicated tank they wont need much protection from other fry wanted to put the hoplos in the main 55G tank or would that be to small also? :0? I'll make sure I get a male then.

55G is pretty ideal for hoplo (Megalechis Thoracata).
Best if it's 4 foot long, can deal with 3 foot too (mine's 20 gallon 3 foot long).
But be careful as some will also have this odd habit of taking pieces of plants to make a bubble nest (that's what mine does when he sees fry and he gets a cool electric blue color on his fins and belly, but he fails to make a proper nest and I just end up with a bunch of plants stuffed somewhere in a corner or under my fry cage).
They grow to 13-15cm long, sometimes 17cm.
Planet Catfish on Megalechis Thoracata
They are also greedy when it comes to food, I feed mine bloodworms, flakes and tiny pieces of salad. They will push away other fish from the food and steal food from snails.

Also, I think you should only have one male hoplo as they might not get along with other males (mine did when I had 2 males, but that may be an exception). And they are pretty brutal when defending fry, today I saw one of the fry get eaten by a lyretail swordie and the hoplo rammed her into the glass to move her away.

I don't quite understand what's up with mine though, as it has these things on the pectoral fins, while other hoplos I've had didn't have them. Those things that point towards his back, not the hard edges (which tell that it's a male).

It is hard to tell which is a male while they're young though, you'd have to look under the fish to see if they have a white thing dangling from between their fins.

As far as I know, that thing's there even when they're young, but the pectorals are not evident before the age of 1 year.

 

[FishBlast]

Side note: I wonder just how different the Megalechis Picta are from Thoracata hoplos.
They look quite nice with their blots over the body, as opposed to the spotted Thoracata. But no idea about their behavior or actual size. And never saw them on sale.
Megalechis Picta