Help!!! My first spawn what do I do!!

[Hernandezj11]

I just had my first spawn of convicts!! I saw the mama eating the babies so I took all the fish out. Its just the fry in the tank now. They are not very big yet they are probably not older than a couple days now. What should I do the tank is a 44 hex with a hot magnum. Im a little worried about the filter..Any assistance would be great!!! Thanks!!

 

[lee1]

Put a sponge(aquarium use only) or prefilter over your intake of the hot magnum and feed the young crushed flakes and should be good to go.

 

[Hernandezj11]

Will the babies be okay without the parents and in the tank by themselves? And do you know how the babies will turn out? The dad is a black convict and the mama is a pink.

 

[micstarz]

It's natural for the parents to eat a couple of fry, but if she's serial eating I'd feed the fry cyclop-eeze or BBS or something like that.

 

[flowerpower]

Try to find an article on decapsulating brine shrimp eggs. They offer more nutrition than baby brine shrimp. Also powdered fish flakes or pellets will be fine. If in a pinch I've heard that you can take a soiled filter sponge and squeeze some of the debris into the tank. Convict fry are fairly hardy and, even in a tank stocked with larger fish, find ways to survive. From my experience the babies will be barred like the black convict only with a lighter gray base color and possibly a less prominent barred pattern overall. Hope this helps.