female yellow
- Thread starter happyface
- Start date
Congrats!
Just leave them. If she's young she may mess this brood up, but plenty more ahead. It's best to leave the fry with the mother. The theory goes, that somehow the fry are impressioned by the mouthbrooding process. If you strip the mother, the fry when adult, may be less likely to properly mouthbrood themselves.
If you want to preserve large amounts of fry, set up a rock pile with tiny pores for the fry to hide in. Feed rehydrated FD cyclops-eze same time you feed the adults. Crushed flake will do as well, but it helps to hydrate the flake meal before feeding for the fry. Live artemia are excellent, if you have the will do that!
Enjoy!
Just leave them. If she's young she may mess this brood up, but plenty more ahead. It's best to leave the fry with the mother. The theory goes, that somehow the fry are impressioned by the mouthbrooding process. If you strip the mother, the fry when adult, may be less likely to properly mouthbrood themselves.
If you want to preserve large amounts of fry, set up a rock pile with tiny pores for the fry to hide in. Feed rehydrated FD cyclops-eze same time you feed the adults. Crushed flake will do as well, but it helps to hydrate the flake meal before feeding for the fry. Live artemia are excellent, if you have the will do that!
Enjoy!
Yes leaving the mother to spit is generally good. You can do as BumbleFish said and make some hiding places... but if you have lots of other fish in the tank then its a good chance most of them will be eaten. A little floating plastic 'breeder box' will suffice and you can put the female in there when shes ready to spit and have her spit in the box. Add a few little plants for cover for the fry. Remove her ASAP so she doesnt get tempted to eat the babies (they usually dont but new mothers might). You can also use a spare 10 gallon or so tank for this. This way you can raise up the babies and not have to worry about moving them around.
OR
You can strip her. With my younger fish who havent held much before (and i assume yours is young) its best to let them spit on thier own. But if your fish is a larger adult and putting her in that little breeder box is out of the question, then you can force her to release the fry. Wait AT LEAST 2 weeks to do this.... closer to 3 would be better. Hold her in your hand and pull her lower lip down with your finger nail or a dull pencil... and the babies will fall out. It may take several times before all the fry have been removed. There are many articles online detailing how to properly strip females. (yes yes i know that sounds bad doesnt it?
)
-Diana
OR
You can strip her. With my younger fish who havent held much before (and i assume yours is young) its best to let them spit on thier own. But if your fish is a larger adult and putting her in that little breeder box is out of the question, then you can force her to release the fry. Wait AT LEAST 2 weeks to do this.... closer to 3 would be better. Hold her in your hand and pull her lower lip down with your finger nail or a dull pencil... and the babies will fall out. It may take several times before all the fry have been removed. There are many articles online detailing how to properly strip females. (yes yes i know that sounds bad doesnt it?
)-Diana