Yellow Lab eggs

[drboeing]

Hi All,

My Yellow Lab spawned and was carrying the eggs in her mouth. The male owuld not leave her alone and was attacking her constantly, I assume to eat the eggs.
I pulled her out and placed her in another spot in the tank that is segrageted from the other fish.She spit out the eggs. I did some reading and one article stated that I need to move the eggs on a regular basis. I am doing this but have noticed a white slime where ever the eggs sit for any period of time.Is this normal or have the eggs been lost?     

[RossW]

I think you would have to tmble them but I do not have any experience with that.  My labs always held and spit fry.

[drboeing]

Mrs Boeing here, MrB is out fixing the car.  I guess we need to learn how things should have been done with the labs once we realised she might be carrying, anyone interested in giving us a tutorial or directing us to a site that explains lab breeding for dummies.  As DrB already wrote, the eggs seems to be disintegrating, what he described as a white slime I would say looks like white powder around most of the eggs, ie like they are disintegrating, have we lost this "litter"?
many thanks as always.
MrsB

[RossW]

I would say if she spit the eggs, the odds of them surviving to fry is approaching zero.  Maybe if you had a tumbler you might be able to do it, but I never have.

In general, once your labs are holding, and they likely will often, you can either leave her in the tank and allow her to spit in the tank or remove her if you want to raise the fry.  In you case with her being harassed, I think removing her was the best thing but it did not work out.  Maybe next time she will do better.  It is not uncommon for fish to require a couple times to get it correct.

Hope this helps.

[drboeing]

Hi RossW:

Thanks for the input, it helps a lot, somewhere in his travels over the weekend, DrB read that she should be forced to release the eggs, then remove the momma, so much for that plan, more remedial questions if you guys dont mind...
1) Should she have been moved into a seperate tank?
2) when DrB moved her away from the male, she promptly spit out the eggs/fry and began to try to get them back into her mouth, can you confirm that she was doing the right thing?
3) Ive heard these eggs (looked like white pellets) called fry, were they actually teeny fish or were they eggs?
3) Finally (for the moment) if she had gotten them to the stage of being baby fish, would they have been raised "to term" in her mouth and released as tiny fry?  would she have attempted to eat them?

Thanks for all the patience, love all the great advice, please keep it coming, I swear when I had fish as a child/teen, only the guppy and goldfish tanks had fry, none of the tropicals, we were not prepared to have our fish multiply.
MrsB.

[RossW]

Here are my thoughts:

1.  If she is healthy and not being picked on and you don't want a ton of little yellow labs, leave her in the main tank she will be fine.  Not many, if any, fry will survive.  They will quickly become snacks once she spits.  If she is not healthy, or is being picked on I would reccomend moving her to a safe place.
2. She did not do the correct thing by spitting, but she did do the correct thing by retrieving them.  Mouthbrooders will release the fry and in danger collect them again.
3. Fry look like little fish, complete with eyes and everything.  Eggs are just round'sh and nondescript.
4. She will hold the eggs and fry in her mouth for 3-4 weeks.  During this time the eggs will hatch and the fry will live in her mouth.  She will not eat them and if you have a good eye you will actually be able to see the fry.  You can also "strip" her of her fry but that is a topic for another day but you can search on youtube and find tons of videos on stripping cichlids.  Here is a pic of a yellow lab holding fry:
http://www.malawimayhem.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10547&sid=adb0e8f6dfecef168141d80297a36e05

Here is an article on cichlid breeding in general:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/malawi_cichlids_breeding.php

[RossW]

she should be forced to release the eggs, then remove the momma

An this subject... it is a little controversial.  Some believe in it, some do not.  There are claims that fry which are removed from their parents forceably do not make as good parents as those who experienced the full natural process.

[drboeing]

Many Thanks for the guidance, we have taken the advice of Ross and the links he suggested, have dumped the eggs and will plan for a better future outcome.  MrsB writing here and I sure appreciated the patience with which you responded to my remedial questions, I suspected I knew what I would learn, but I prefer to have the experience of others when I am facing the questions that are sitting in the tank.  If you have follow up advice, it is always welcome.

[drboeing]

So, our Labs have forgiven our misquided attempts at helping mother nature last month, and the female is holding again, we are going to just leave everything alone and see how it all goes... we talked about dividing the tank for the momma to have some privacy, but given that she may do this again in the near future, well see how nature takes its course.

[rnish]

If you provide lots of rockwork with very small spaces some of the babies will survive. (lace rock, lavarock ect)  The fry instinctively know to hide.  I often find tiny babies when I am cleaning my tank and need to move the rock work.  Usually i find them in the bottom of the bucket I placed my rocks in swimming in the little bit of water that drained. 

I don't strip my females.  I think they make very good parents but it can take them a few tries to learn.  The contraversy with not stripping them is that the female becomes weak by not eating for a month.  Sometimes she holds too long.  I usually seperate the obvious holding female to give her a break and leave her with her babies for many weeks so she can regain her strength before she breeds again.  I have used a large breeder net with a bubbler in the main tank as the female reaches the end of her holding period.  I have also used a divider in the tank.  The divider keep the large fish apart but the fry frequently can squeeze between the divider and the glass and sometimes get stuck there.I now move my female into a smaller tank byherself or with some other fry.I have had my holding females spit as I caught them.  When in the new tank the female quickly took her babies back into her mouth.

Breeders who strip can return the female to the tank to breed again sooner.  They then however have the difficulty of caring for the eggs/fry.

Good Luck with your momma and babies to be.  I would agree with you to let nature take its course with this batch. Make sure she hads lots of hiding places in the tank to avoid being harassed. Catching momma last time was too stressful for her. 
Jade

[drboeing]

Thanks rnish, DrB and I have debated this, and your points just finalised it in my opinion, given our lack of experience with breeding fish, and figuring  Mother Nature, or in this case Momma Cichlid is probably smarter than us in these matters, well let her do her thing and see what happens.  Our tank is pretty busy with plants and rocks, so we will make one side of it a little more crowded and that will be the end of our assistance, will keep you posted as things progress. 
MrsB

[drboeing]

Well my female looks like her mouth is going to explode. Her gullet is ver stretched and has a black type hue to it, I am guessing the eggs maturing or very small fry that have hatched.I have noticed that she has started to become agressive to anything that comes near her, also noticed the male is chasing her more now too.

[drboeing]

so it will be 4 weeks this Thursday since we saw momma lab holding, MrBoeing became concerned that the male was becoming a bit agressive towards momma, so he placed her into a net confinement as of last night (Sunday).  This morning she spit out 4 fry, we suspect she is holding more, and has since taken them back into her mouth and not released since, at least not that we have seen.  Is she still behaving normally?  We have given her food (cichlid crisps) both whole and ground, from her behaviour I think she has at least tried to eat.  Any guidance folks?

[sas]

I'm no expert by any means on cichlids. Our experience with the cichlids is that when they do spit and if the female is not feeling secure, she will take the fry back into her mouth. I've also watched the fry swim around the females mouth, pestering her and she then took them back.
As far as the female eating while holding, I've observed ours swimming through clouds of finely crushed flake and actually eating. Hope that helps

[drboeing]

Thanks SAS, for the reply, it does help, do you have any idea how long she held for tho?  From the past thread Ive read, after 4 weeks, we should see the fry more and more, this one sighting gave us hope, but not so sure again, still this morning, no sign of the fry we saw yesterday. 

[sas]

Well ah......our C. borleyi on a first spawn held for 22 days and the fry were fairly small. The second time we left her in the main tank and only 4 fry survived. Not sure how long she held that time. The third spawn she was removed to a smaller tank and I'm not sure how long she held for. She kept taking them back and holding them for about 4 days. I was having a fit thinking she had eaten them each time.
Four weeks seems like a long time, maybe she is just too stressed?

[drboeing]

Im thinking she was stressed as well, when drB came in from work this morning, he saw she had finally spit a few again, and he decided to move her out of the "nursery" back to the main tank, it appears we have about 9 fry in the net now, one diddnt make it, and momma fish is happily gobbling all the food that lands in the main tank, whether she was holding more well likely never know, but 9 more fish is already too much, well have to sell off some of the Platy's for sure!

[drboeing]

It turns out I have about 20 fry, 1 died but the rest are doing very well, eating everytime I place some crushed cichlid chips in their nursery.
I will be picking up a 15 gallon this weekend and placing the little ones in it to allow them to grow with no predators.

[RossW]

Congrats!

[bitterman]

It turns out I have about 20 fry, 1 died but the rest are doing very well, eating everytime I place some crushed cichlid chips in their nursery.
I will be picking up a 15 gallon this weekend and placing the little ones in it to allow them to grow with no predators.

Congratulations... You might be able to pickup a tank used in the Classified area and save some $... some people have many tanks just laying around the house If you want to enhance there coloration spirulina flake or tablets are good for your fry.... can really make them pop as a nautual color enhancer and also helps the immune system.

Bruce