Species Krib Tank - thoughts

[angyles]

I got my first pair of kribs several weeks ago. They've already had one batch of fry and I think they're going to have another very soon. During this "child rearing" time, they've banished all my other fish to about 10 out of 55 gallons of tank. IT's kinda funny really. But I've been thinking, They would do really well in a krib only tank. Just them and their youngons. I really don't know what a person's supposed to do with all the babies they make, anyway!

So I'm wondering, Would a 30G be large enough to house this pair of kribs and all their subsequent babies? I'm a bit confused about how this works. If I do that...won't the siblings eventually start mating too and I'll suddenly have like 500 fish in this little tank? Does anyone have any advice on how to succesfully keep a krib tank, without depending on LFS taking the fry off your hands? I've talked to them, they don't seem interested. My other thought is to seperate the genders and have a male tnak and a female tank...

any thoughts?

 

[Sploke]

If you want to breed them, a 30gal would be enough, but you'll need probably several growout tanks for growing out the fry and keeping them until you can unload them either through your LFS or selling them here, Aquabid, local clubs, etc. Keep in mind that you might have to care for them for several months before they get to saleable size.

If you don't want to seal with fry, either separate the genders or get something larger that will eat them.

 

[angyles]

any advise on what would be a good fish to eat the babies? I thought my rosy barbs or diamond tetras would (in fact I was counting on it), but the parents have been too good at their job! What is a fish that you can count on for that?

 

[angyles]

I got another thought. I've been thinking of start a 20G planted tank with jsut schooling rasboras, tetras, etc. I'm thinking I can put daddy in there, and leave mommy in the 55G with her fry. Move the fry into a growout tank in a little while, and then put 1 more female in the 55 and 1 more male in the 20 and sell the rest. If I do this, will the boys fight with each other? Also, I this sounds silly, but I read that if they're not mated they pine for the opposite sex. Will mommy and daddy miss each other if they're seperated?

 

[Pittbull]

well all in all they are cichlids west african so they do a good job at maintaining a safe zone for their offspring, the reason all of the other fish are pushed to the side of the tank is that the parents are doing their job and a really good one at that, this is what will happen if you remove non specific fish from this tank is that the parents need to defend their young and if no target fish is around he or she may take it out on each other more so with the male pushing the female away and it will be brutal even fatal if this were to happen and or turn onto the offspring and they to will be killed off now as for target fish go you could do a small group say like 5 rainbowfish with their speed and top water action they will provide the needed parents a reason to defend their nest and fry, if the babies are going to be an issue and it will, (they are prolific breeders), than a predator in the mist to gobble up some fry will be needed but you dont want something in the system that will kill the parents or even harass them so they dont spawn any more usually a medium size catfish will do the job like a rapheal cat they are nocturnal and at lights out they will make a snack out of fry if they can get pretty close plus they have armor to help them but you may wake up to a total fry loss with these cats, i dont think they will mourn the loss of a mate not 100% sure on kribs, striped rapheals look nice plus they tend to stay around the 4 to 5 inch mark in size, good luck my friend..