It never rains, but it pours

[shinypenny]

Just to preface this. In all my years of fish keeping I've never successfully bred fish. Sure I've got fry, (Africans and live bearers) but it hardly counts if they get eaten before you know what to do with them.

Now I have a 65 gallon tank, which I stocked some Firemouths, Angels, Gourami and Barbs. Everything was going swimmingly until the FMs decide to breed. In the ensuing melay I now have a shoal of ~20 fry in the main tank, and the two angels had to be removed to a hospital tank due to injuries. Well after a couple of weeks in the hospital tank one of the Angels has swelled up and I can see a breeding tube protruding, there has also been a lot of lip locking in the tank from two previously passive fish. So now it looks like I'll have Angelfish eggs any day.

So basically, I could soon have two loads of fry, the FMs are trying for a second batch, and I plan to move house in about three weeks!?! How would you guys recommend getting rid of the fry, as the lfs won't take them this small and I don't want to just cull them all.

As a side note I realize that if I leave the Angels in with the eggs they will probably be eaten, which would suit me fine, but there's always a chance that they will be good parents, and 100+ fry would be chaos. I need that hospital tank empty to help with the move!

 

[FSM]

If you have cichlids they will eat the fry.

 

[Bobears]

From reading your post it almost sounds like you'd like to raise them if you could. But you certainly have a problem. IMO you should just leave it up to nature to end it all, which it probably will. Then if they try to breed again in the next three weeks disrupt their chosen spot, works for me. Good luck.

Oh, you'll have to disrupt that spot on the first sign of the behavior. It always seems they know where they're going to breed a good while in advance. This won't work forever, but it may get you through the move.