leave the eggs in the tank or not?

[beex215]

this is a friends problem.this is what he has to say..

I have a 55 gallon tank with 3 calico goldfish, 1 weather loach, 1 ryukin and 2 chinese catfish. Ok... so one of the catfish got rather large and I was joking for the last few weeks that 'she' looked like a pregnant cat or dog with the pooched out belly... turns out I was right as she spent all day yesterday hidden under a false leaf and laid her eggs and belly is all normal 'n flat now (didn't check for stretchmarks though, lady needs her privacy).

So.... now she's circling above the leaf and what I assume are the eggs. Should I let nature be and what lives... lives? Should I try to partition it off with a plastic collander to protect the eggs from the others? Any ideas would do here folks.

Thanks in advance

 

[wataugachicken]

if you leave them in there, it's very likely they'll get eaten. removing them would give the best chance of survival for the eggs/fry. i don't know how well the catfish protect the eggs.

 

[Ayoyoj]

leave them in a differnt tank then the parents if the parents are eating them or you will have none in days.

 

[ShadowBass]

1. What species are we referring to? Chinese catfish is a common name for several unrelated species.

As to what to do with them that depends on what he wants. Does he want to raise the fry? In that case he needs an appropriate setup for housing the babies and growing them out a bit, otherwise there's really no point. The babies will also have to be given plenty attention for feeding and water changes.

If he doesn't care about raising any fry just leave them be.