More Babies again and again!!! :)

[lucky777]

I recently moved about a month ago and about a week later decided to adjust my ph,gh,kh for my malawi tank.  Within 3 days I noticed 2 demansoni holding and also 1 of my yellow labs.  It almost been about 23-24 days since they 1st started holding and now I'm debating whether or not to strip the babies from the females.  I have a 20 Gallon that had been running for a year,but is now recently empty and would make great house for the fry.

My dilemma is I don't want to hurt the female or risk her injuring them while trying to remove the babies.  I'm really strapped for time right now and don't have time to remove the rock work to get the females out.  What do you think the survival rate of fry would be if I left the babies in my 80 gallon with everyone else?

Currently it is stocked heavily with 10 Demansoni, 5 Labs, 4 Rusty's and 4 red by reds.

What should I do?

[kennyman]

I have been geting between four and seven survivors per brood in my main display tank. But I think its going to depend alot on rockwork and any how bad any other fish want to eat the little guys. I feed hbh veggie flake along with NLS pellets so that the little guys in my tank get some flake dust to munch on. There are always babies of varrious broods swimming around in there 

[lucky777]

Usually I let things go naturally and let the mom have the babies in the main tank with everyone else. This time however 2 of the females were getting pretty skinny so I stripped them both of the fry. The fry are quite large since I waited almost 25
days since I 1st noticing they were holding.

I ended up stripping them into breeder nets located at the top of my main tank with all the adults in it. My question is how long should I leave them there in there before I move them to my 20 gallon which currently holds no fish (Was temp housing for other fish until recently) or should I just move them right away? Reason for asking is all the adults are trying to pick at them in the nets.

Oh yeah they were Yellow lab and Demansoni babies (2 batches). 3rd one will be stripped tomorrow

Thanx for any input you can give me Smile

[damarech]

Don't strip your female. Instead, put her by herself in the 20 gal ,with enought rocks for hiding. I just did this with my yellow labs and no problem.

[lucky777]

To late, stripped them last night, currently in 2 breeder nets in top of 20 gallon.  They seem to be doing great and the mothers are still in the main tank.  They both ate twice today   Was worried about hurting them last night but they seem to be fine

[lucky777]

Took a pic of the little labs today, excuse the powdered spirulina floating on the water   

[attachment deleted by admin]

[new_hobby]

I had this situation before (2 nets of yellow labs in the main tanks), and I wanted to keep the fry in the main tank for at least 2 weeks (for them to get bigger and stronger) before moving them into my 10G; so what I did was that I got a clear bag to cover the bottom of the net and up to 1/3 the height of it from the bottom (2/3 of the net still have water go through it) and use a rubber band to hold the bag in place; because the adult fish usually try to nip them from the bottom of the net, this will prevent that. It worked very good for me.

[cory]

I hate breeding nets! my other fish seem to kill them from pecking the netting. I use the breeding traps (plastic ones) Works soo much better in my opinion..I always have around 20 fry at a time per female.(Yellow Lab)

[Adam]

I leave my fish to spit in the main aquarium with all the other mbuna.  I have 4 or 5 survivors that have grown between 1 cm and 5 cm over the past couple years.  I'd say survival rate is less than 1 per brood.

Adam

[lucky777]

So far I have only had one die out of about 35 between the 2 batches, I came home tonight and it was laying at the bottom of the breeder net  .  The rest seem fine, hopefully I don't lose anymore.


Anyone here have and average percentage for survival rate for Mbuna being kept in breeder nets.  Diet for mine so far consists of powdered flake food, daphnia, pure powdered spirulinaand left overs from my homemade frozen food.

[pegasus]

I don't use breeder nets anymore, I do my own version of it for many reasons, better security, environment, easier to remove the fry and I can feed them microworms without loosing most of it through the net.
I use rectangular and tall plastic containers, will cut two side windows about 2 inch from the bottom and glue screen over them, that's it.
If I got a chance, I'll post a picture tonight.

[cory]

Michel ur set up is by far the most productive way! I use the same kind of method. Never lost any fry since! Once again, Awesome set ups and Fish!

[lucky777]

Would be interested in seeing your version Pegasus, always looking for new ideas.  Pegasus what do you think of the diet I have listed that I'm feeding them?

[pegasus]

Your diet is perfect, nothing wrong with it. If my fry are still with yolk, I give them Microworms as to jump-start them. Tell me again that by stripping females that those little fry are loosing. BOGWASH! 
Ok got to go see how many Red Empress, Taiwan Reef and labs I'm to put in breeder cages tonight. Oh and pictures of a few of them.

[pegasus]

Very simple to make, just hard to find the right size.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[lucky777]

looks easy enough to build, what type of screen is it?  I'm assuming you use silicone to attach the screen to the container?

How long do you normally grow out the fry in your containers?  I thought I had read that as soon as they color up that they are ready to be released out of the net, am I wrong? (Assuming they are the only fish in the tank that is)

[lucky777]

Decided to strip another Demansoni tonight.  She was very small and was holding about 15 babies.  To my surprise as she spit them out about  one third of them were dead and looked like they had been dead for a while.  Most of them the stripes were obvious but the dead ones were colorless. Is it normal for the babies to die while the mother is still holding them?  Could it be that she was so small and had so many in there that  she accidentally crushed them?

[pegasus]

I use vinyl window screen and a glue gun. Don't forget to scratch the surface before applying the glue.
I never have found that many died fry in a female's mouth, but you are right if she had to much, she could possibly rolled them all and they would have suffocated.

[lucky777]

So I came home today and looked in my Shell Dweller tank and to my surprise about 5 little Telmatochromis temporalis swim out of the moms shell at about 1/2 cm long.  A few minutes later I go  tell my girfriend and what do I notice int the Malawi tank but a Rusty and a Red by Red that both have mouth fulls.

This is getting out of control, but at the same time it awesome 

[cory]

Hey michel! wanna trade a red empris for a n. livingstoni!