Frontosa tank help please

[Reject86]

Hi there new to the forum but been fish keeping for 15+ years, anyways I want
Some ideas on a problem (or not) that I'm havIng, I suppose from the photo I'm about to upload, you can sort of thell that my tank us slightly over stocked I have roughly 7 fully grown Frontosa 5 adolescents and 3 or 4 youngsters, not to mention an assortment of L nos, now the group are breeding well maybes 50 eggs every 2 month, my problem is that I want to thin out the groupe to give them basically more tank space, I'm not permitted by the wife to buy another tank to put them
In and so the only option is to sell on the ones I don't require. I find that with the eggs I'm getting from the females that only half the time they are fertilised, my dominant male is massive around 20" and so im not sure he has the room to fertilise them,
So I guess my question is do I get rid of the larger males to make room for the adolescent ones to become dominat or do I get rid of some of the younger ones? I have had these fish for 7 years now, I just don't want to get rid I suppose.
Any one no wether you get rid of adults or adolescents? Any help greatly appreciated thanks alot.
Jamie

 

[mshill90]

Frontosa don't get 20" just to correct you on that part..

What size tank do you have?

Majority of the people who want fry from their frontosa use egg tumblers because the females often swallow the eggs, as they are mouth brooders. There is a guy on aquabid that sells tumblers for frontosa at like $20 pc.

Frontosa take quite some time until they mature, and you would have to vent them to ensure they are really males that you get rid of, as cichlids in captivity of both males and females get nauchal humps. I have Frontosa that are at least 3+ years old, and I have only ever had eggs once as of just recent, but I want them to do their own thing, so because she was a younger female she did end up swallowing the eggs.

 

[Reject86]

Thanks for that, size wise just a guestimate lol, as you can see from my photo, I use home built egg tumblers which I find excellent, my main question tho was how do I separate to keep them breeding? Thin out the adults? Or thin out the younger ones?

 

[Reject86]

Just to point out the tumbler is the blue pipe on left side of tank, currently has 40+ eggs in

 

[mshill90]

Well, the younger ones have some time to mature.. so if you want them to keep breeding then you remove the young ones.