My 10 year old daughter has caught the fishkeeping bug in a big way. She started a couple years ago with a basic 10 gallon, then last year moved up to a 29 Gallon bow, and recently has had me put together a 50 Gallon aquarium for cichlids. She's done her research and has included an oversized cannister filter, UV sterilizer, in line heater, etc. Anyway, she decided that she wanted to raise firemouths in this tank, so we purchased two pairs of firemouths about 3 weeks ago. They have the tank to themselves, other than two siamese algae eaters that joined them this past Saturday. We have noticed that the cichlids have paired off with one dominant pair and a second non dominant pair. Well, we woke up this morning to a surprise. The dominant pair have a huge number of fry swimming around their end of the tank. The parents are doing a good job of parenting, the other pair have firmly retreated to their own nest on the other side of the tank and the algae eaters are keeping their distance.
Just looking for any tips, thoughts, etc. She is adding the odd shrimp pellet which the parents seem to be grinding down for the fry. We don't have the extra tanks to remove them and raise them properly as our other tanks are all populated. Do I have to pick up a nursery tank now?
I have added a picture of the dominant pairs nesting area as well as a picture of the tank as a whole. The non dominant pair occupy the rocks at the right of the tank, and the dominant pair have taken over the rocks on the left.
Just looking for any tips, thoughts, etc. She is adding the odd shrimp pellet which the parents seem to be grinding down for the fry. We don't have the extra tanks to remove them and raise them properly as our other tanks are all populated. Do I have to pick up a nursery tank now?
I have added a picture of the dominant pairs nesting area as well as a picture of the tank as a whole. The non dominant pair occupy the rocks at the right of the tank, and the dominant pair have taken over the rocks on the left.
