how soon can i remove fry from tank?

[dianne6]

I have a 55 gallon tank. I have two small oscars in there.
5 & 4 inches perhaps. I read somewhere that until they
got bigger i could put in some convicts. ( i planned to move
them to a 20 gal soon) Everyone was getting along fine
until the convicts laid eggs, well the fry hatched like 3 days
ago. Daddy Convict has gotten terrible. The two oscars
have been stuck in one top corner of the tank. If they try
to leave the convict rushes them back over. I want to get
the convicts over there but dont know how soon i can try
to syphon the babies out to put them in another tank.
She put them in a hollow log and the mom and dad keep
picking them up and putting them back in whenever they
stray to far. I dont want to lose any of the babies but i feel
sorry for my oscars because they are like prisoners in the
corner of their tank. I only have a ten gallon now, will
hopefully get the 20 gallon this week. Which is the lesser
of the two evils. Try moving the oscars to the smaller tank.
( trust me they would still have more room in the 10 gallon
than they are allowed now) or shall i try to move the convicts.

Any suggestions?

and yes, i have learned my lesson about keeping them all
together, but now i just have to fix this problem!

Thanks for any advice.

Dianne

 

[Darkangel]

You can move the fry any time now. The sooner the better by the sounds of your poor oscars. Leave the oscars, move the convicts. Fry to the 20, parents to the ten. Use water from your 55 and seed the filters with your active filter.

 

[dianne6]

So..

You dont think that the fry should stay with the parents?
It seems to me that they are taking care of them. They are
miniscule and it looks like helping them eat. Blowing food out
of their gills, etc.

Just curious.
Thanks so much for your response!

Dianne

 

[Darkangel]

Under most circumstances I would leave parents and fry together. However when moving them I would be worried of the parents eating them because of all the excitement of the move. It would be your choice but I recomended what I did to avoid that scenario.

 

[ScottoMacD]

I always remove all my fry (severum, rainbow cichlid, A.Spilirus, etc)

3 days after free swimming.

1) It calms the tank down sooner.

2) higher survival rate. less get eaten by both parents and other fish.

I am actually taking a break from setting up my fry tank right now to place my severum fry in the tank tomorrow morning which happens to be day 3 free swimming.