baby cons gone!

[rigsha97]

Have a pair on black convicts in a 40 gallon tank and had eggs for the first time about five days ago. Yesterday I had approx 75-100 eggs. About a dozen of those were hatching (wigglers). This morning there are only about 20 eggs left and no wigglers. The mother is still watching them. I have to assume she ate them. Any ideas why this would have happened. Is this a new mother thing?

[Ghost_knife]

prolly. she has eaten them I am sure

[liv2padl]

immature female cichlids often eat their first batch of eggs. they simply don't know what to do with them so they remove them. other options ... eggs are eaten if fungused or otherwise non-viable.

that said however, female cichlids typically move the 'wrigglers' to a pit' she's dug in order to 'hide' them from potential predators. this pit is usually in an out of sight location and my bet is that's where the fry have gone. remaining eggs may still be watched in case there's some that remain viable ... usually this is dads job however. in any event, look for some mobile fry within a week.

[Reddog80p]

yup I suspected there are some fry somewhere out of sight. :shark:

[loucas6290]

its very uncommon for a convict pair to get it right on the first try though, some of my pairs have taken three to four times to get a sucsessful brood

[Mgamer20o0]

um.... lunch