Jaguar fry dying

[Nove Sedici]

Apparently the young parents were still learning. About a month ago they ate the batch of fry once they started free swimming. Last week there were about 50 free swimmers left which they protected. I think I accidentally killed a lot of the batch by catching a couple of Vieja melanura from the tank, I didn't even know there was eggs/fry in the tank so i wasn't extra careful when catching them out of the tank.

After 5 days i decided to separate them from the parents because only 20-25 were left.

They are now in a small tank and eating well. Hopefully next time will be better again and more fry will be left

 

[Vampire fish]

Dont change anything in the tank when the fish are breeding and for a few weeks after they are born. Keep the tank warm. What looks like a dirty tank to you and me a lot of fish like.

 

[tlindsey]

Dont change anything in the tank when the fish are breeding and for a few weeks after they are born. Keep the tank warm. What looks like a dirty tank to you and me a lot of fish like.

Yes if parameters are stable and Nitrate level low it's ok to allow algae to grow. This is another food source for fry especially Cichlids. Also agree about not disturbing anything in the aquarium while eggs,wigglers, or free swimming fry are being cared for by the Parent fish.

 

[Nove Sedici]

Dont change anything in the tank when the fish are breeding and for a few weeks after they are born. Keep the tank warm. What looks like a dirty tank to you and me a lot of fish like.

Thanx, thats what i did last time, i didn/t realise there were eggs/fry in the tank. I've still got about 15 young ones left ans separated.
There is another (huge) badge of wigglers in the jaguar tank right now

 

[Vampire fish]

Thanx, thats what i did last time, i didn/t realise there were eggs/fry in the tank. I've still got about 15 young ones left ans separated.
There is another (huge) badge of wigglers in the jaguar tank right now

What I do is already what I said before and then after around 3 weeks or when babies start looking independent I take out the majority with a siphon and leave a couple for the parents to keep watching.

 

[Nove Sedici]

Well.... that’s a big batch of fry this time..

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Well.... that’s a big batch of fry this time..View attachment 1408514View attachment 1408515

Just remember new parents are almost never going to get it right the first few times. Granted they should get better over time so I'd let them have a few more chances of raising them by them selves and if it still doesn't work out that's when I would start removing fry after letting them raise them for a few weeks after free swimming everytime.
Also you might get a lil more luck if you add a couple of bushy fake plants into the tank for the fry to hide in.

 

[Nove Sedici]

Ended up with around 100 of them little buggers... half of them already have new homes. Still around 50 left between 1 and 2,5 inch. They will go to the fish store when they are a little bigger.

And they keep on spawning... Better call them “rabbit cichlids” instead of Jaguar cichlids ;-)

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Lol if ya wanted something ya could call a true "rabbit cichlid" I would go with convicts. They will breed in almost any condition and they tend to be extremely good parents with a very low mortality rate. Had mine spawn and had over 100 fry, 80 or so made it to adulthood. Least to say I had allot of fish food afterwards.

 

[maxstillen]

With the experience with my pair of jags, the frys never live pass a few weeks. My male is about 10 inches and female about 8.5-9. They've been spawning since 4 inches. For some reason the pair keeps attacking their reflection off the tank and im assuming they think its a threat so after a few weeks the frys dissapper. Then they repeat with spawning again a week after of when i do a water change. If i want to keep the frys i usually have to net them out and raise them seperately if i want to keep them.
With frys dying randomly, some fry will die off slowly if not feed with live hatched shrimp. I only used hikari first bites and some fry won't take it so they starve til the die. But with the right water parameters and newly hatch brine shrimp most fry will survive.