How can I encourage my convicts to eat their young?

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They will usually destroy the nest if they perceive a threat, whether it’s a larger cichlid fish, other cichlids, or even you staring at them.
 
Do extremely intrusive waterchanges or rearrange the tank, anything that makes the parents cower in fear to the point that they decide "this isn't a suitable place to raise children"
 
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Do extremely intrusive waterchanges or rearrange the tank, anything that makes the parents cower in fear to the point that they decide "this isn't a suitable place to raise children"


Ok this is good advice, I was just considering feeding them less. I guess I could just scramble the eggs with an algae scraper.
 
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If you can convince yourself that keeping your fish in a terrified state to encourage egg-eating is an ethical thing to do...and while I'm sure that this kind of psychological abuse would probably work...bear in mind that as soon as things settle down again, the female will lay another clutch and the cycle will repeat. Producing a clutch of eggs is a physically taxing biological exercise, and she will be doing it much more frequently if she never has the chance to tend the eggs and the young.

If you don't want a pair of fish to breed, you could...gee, I don't know...separate them? Just sayin'...
 
If you can convince yourself that keeping your fish in a terrified state to encourage egg-eating is an ethical thing to do...and while I'm sure that this kind of psychological abuse would probably work...bear in mind that as soon as things settle down again, the female will lay another clutch and the cycle will repeat. Producing a clutch of eggs is a physically taxing biological exercise, and she will be doing it much more frequently if she never has the chance to tend the eggs and the young.

If you don't want a pair of fish to breed, you could...gee, I don't know...separate them? Just sayin'...
Yeah, separating is really the best method.
 
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