Ok so my hrp breed regularly. Once they become free swimming they all get eaten within 2-3days. The tank has 6 hrp, 8 swordtails, and 4 Odessa barbs. I tried to pull the wrigglers once and that failed as my breeder box has holes that they fell through from. What is the best course of action a new breeder box without holes or Hope the parents get it right. Or is there something else I could try
Advice needed
- Thread starter Gman9272
- Start date
I don’t understand breeding talk in the fish keeping world but I’m sure if you put that in a way that my simple mind can understand then I can most definitely help or at least try
The parents aren’t the ones eating the fry. It’s the tank mates, I guess i am wondering if there any strategies to keep the fry with the parents without them all becoming casualties. Will they get better at keeping them alive or should I buy a new breeder box and pull them when they become wigglersy
Firstly fish are terrible parents they don’t get better or worse it’s either they do or don’t care lol but you need to separate the fry from everything else in the tank for a couple weeks you could use a breeder box of some sort I can help you find one and send you a link if you’d like or you could move the hrp to a separate tank to breed in
Incorrect, cichlids, especially of the amatitlania genus, which his are, are known for being excellent parents. The first few batches may go bad in terms of the parents not being able to guard them from tank mates/becoming stressed and eating them themselves. Most people can agree most first or second time parents of all species aren't the best at it. Most of my pairs in tanks with other fish lose their first batch or two. They get better with time.
With hrps what I would worry about once they do get the hang of it is your swordtails getting bashed, but if they have enough space they should be fine. The thing with hrps though is how small their batches are, so the typical fry loss of something like a normal convict in a community tank may happen to be the entire batch of an hrp spawn. I personally would get another tank to pull fry to, pull them as wrigglers and keep them in a breeder box even when free swimming, spot feed and clean them in the box for about 5 days to a week and then release them into the fry tank. A 10 gallon or 20 tall should be good for a whole batch of hrps for awhile. Hrp fry are born tiny, I would recommend getting them on bbs to start off, or just keep them on it until they're too big to see it as food. Once or twice a day with corresponding water changes will help them grow faster. If you want to maintain the pair, only pull half the fry and let them raise the rest. If they lose all the fry too soon the male may turn on the female. Additionally on the subject of breeder boxes, I personally also don't like using them with cichlids, as they will be able to smell their offspring and try to get them back by sucking them through the holes of the breeder box. Which they are usually successful with, no matter what kind of breeder box, making the concept futile. However this also has the added side effect of the fry getting stuck while being sucked through, and or subsequently getting ripped in half, so again, I would not use breeder boxes in the same tank as the parents. Dividers also don't work in my experience, as when the fry decide to try and go on the other side, the other fish are able to snap them up without the parents being able to guard them, as the parents cannot fit through the divider. Unless you completely seal off one side of the tank with plexiglass or something.
I however may also ask, how big is your pair, what kind of filtration do you have, and how big is the tank? So far really your three options are either wait and see if they get better at guarding, move their tankmates or move the fry to a growout tank.
Hope this helps, good luck.
Hybridfish7
thank you for the response so far this current pair has lost 3 free swimming batches. The male had a previous female who died and 3 of the other hrp are his young that he raised on his own with similar conditions. I am not too concerned with the swordtails getting beat up honestly that’s what they are there for. The tank is a 75 my big male is a solid 4in maybe bigger the female is about 2 inches the other hrp are 2 other young pairs that I just left in there incase I lost one of my dominant pair. I have a hob filter if I remember correctly it was rated for a 150 gal tank. It’s been years since I bought it lol.
Ah I see, that's good, things should be fine in that case
You can try adding a powerhead if you don't have one already to throw off the swords a bit, that's what I do with mine and you get a bit more interesting parental behavior
You can try adding a powerhead if you don't have one already to throw off the swords a bit, that's what I do with mine and you get a bit more interesting parental behavior