very weird breeding behavior.

[rust9000]

Ok so i got 4 free convicts about 3 weeks ago, a breeding pair and two separate ones, the breeding pair were from a different place to to other 2.
So they are in my 115g and the male from the breeding pair rejected his female and took the other bigger female.
After about 3 days of this they were showing signs of breeding so i put my divider in and i went on holiday for a week( my nan was feeding my fish). i come home and ask my nan if there was any eggs/fry she said no and i was very disapointed,
I go to look at my tank and found about 200fry still with their yolk sacks i was so happy, i thought that they would have eaten them being their first try but the little wriglers lost their sacks tonight and are kinda swiming.

- my questions are how long can they stay with mum and dad?
- What do i feed them?
- how long does it take for them to get to an inch?

Thanks guys and sorry for the long post.

 

[paOol]

for the first 3 days, they'll eat off their sacs.
after that, you should get them on fry food,
hikari first bites works great.

umm, i think it takes around a month to reach 1 inch.
my friend had his fry for a while now, and their almost 1''.

some people siphon out the fry, and some people remove the parents. its up to you.
when i breed my clowns, i plan on siphoning out the fry into a 10gallon tank about when they are free swimmers.

 

[rust9000]

Ok thanks will do.

 

[riftnreef]

Keep an eye on the parents... They will care for the fry for about 3-4 weeks. When they are ready to spawn again, they will start to attack the old fry. You will start to notice the fry hanging towards the top in a far corner away from the parents. When that time comes...get them moved or the parents will kill them to protect the new brood.


"J"

 

[Jason_S]

ditto to what's been said already and I wanted to add that when my last pair of convicts spawned, I removed about half the fry into a separate tank all by themselves. the fry that were alone grew much faster than the ones still with their parents.

 

[skinless]

excellent advice. I would add that fry food might not even be neccessary. My cons eat pellets for the most part, and often will prechew and spit into the cloud of fry. crushed flakes would also work as the fry become bolder with age. enjoy.

 

[Jason_S]

I was feeding those cons on crushed flake until they got big enough for small pellets.

 

[rust9000]

Thanks for the advice, they are all now free swimming and happy.