seeking opinions on raising fry (v. argentea)

[fitznacio]

Ok, I have a so-called colony of argentea in a 180, however the male has grown at a faster rate that the 3 females (half his size) and 2 smaller unsexed fish. The male pretty much spawns with any female that is ready at the time, my problem is that recently he allows the female to lay her eggs and then he does his business and for the first day he appears to do his job keeping other fish alway then he decides he doesn't like his spawning partner then chases her away and eventually eats the eggs, so this last time I waited for him to chase of his partner and then I placed the flower pot they spawned in the up position with the egg crate sitting on top of the opening to prevent the eggs from getting eaten, I then waited a few days until I had wigglers and with a turkey baster removed the wigglers and put them into a 10 gallon tank that has been running over a year and added water from the 180 gallon tank. So far the wigglers are still alive. I am curious to see if anyone has had issues similar to my situation.

 

[e!o!z!]

I had this problem when I had more then one female in the tank. I think the other females would eat the eggs. I started taking the male out of the tank, leaving only the one female that layed the eggs in the tank, but you should be able to raise the fry in a tank by themselves just fine.

 

[fitznacio]

what are the chances of survival with the absence of either parent, when the parents are present they ususally move them from one spot to another and eating the unhatched(fungus) eggs, would the fungus affect the wigglers even if I have added metheyene blue to the tank?

 

[clgkag]

Fitz, you might have better luck raising the fry in a bigger tank. Do you think you could squeeze in a 55 somewhere? I know space is an issue.

On another note, have you tried using eggcrate to divide the male away from the eggs? Wait until they lay and are fertilized and them section them off with mom, away from dad?

 

[Andrewtfw]

Don't have experience breeding argentea but wanted to say congrats on the spawn. Do you have full tank pics available?

 

[fitznacio]

You know Clint I might try that next go round. Right now the male is on the other side of the 180 hanging out with another female who is show courtship coloration (washed out) . I would guess that she when she drops those eggs I run over the Lowes and pick another piece of eggcrate to divide the tank.

 

[fitznacio]

Andrewtfw, if you do a search under argentea dated around 9/18/08 I took several pictures of a full view of my tank with the male and females. The tank is basically a 180 with ordinary flower pots on each end and three strawberry pots in the middle with pvc tubes on the bottom. This allows the females to hide from the male when he gets too aggressive with them. I believe he is about 10 1/2 to 11 1/2 inches currently. I post some pictures of the fry in the 10 gallon if I can keep them alive beyond the wiggler stage.