Two of my fire red peacock cichlids have fish in their mouths. Should i move them to a 10 gallon tank?
11 November 2009
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They seem to be getting chased around alot. Are the father’s supposed to help with the care, mine sure isn’t? Could I put the females in the same tank or will they eat the other’s fry. Please help me this is their first brood and I have no idea what to do. I noticed that they had eggs in their mouths yesterday. If i should put them in that tank what should be in it. What can I feed the fry? What is a sponge filter and how do I make one. When can I put the fry with the other fish?
Actually it might be about an 25 gallon but im not really sure
No, the male has no interest in the fry, except maybe to eat them.
Normally, if the tank is suitably sized and properly rockscaped, the females can hide out and be left in the main tank, but if they are getting harassed than moving them might be a good idea. The problem is, a 10 gallon is not such a great size tank for more than one holding female. Still, if you take care of it you can squeeze a couple in there. In the tank should be a sponge filter. I like to include a few rocks so the fry can hide out, but some people prefer to keep them in bare tanks. Going without substrate will make for an easier to clean fry tank.
Once the females spits, she can be moved back to the main tank, and then you can crush the regular cichlid food into powder and feed that as the main fry food. You can buy ‘fry food’, but the fry of mouthbrooders are big and strong so you don’t need to specialize like that. Baby brine shrimp and spirulina are both excellent supplements too. For fry, feeding frequent, small meals is best (2 or 3 times per day). Water quality is the most important thing to get good growth with the fry, and doing water changes on the fry tank 2 or 3 times per week is not unheard of.
Keep in mind these fish are avid breeders and don’t need anything special. You will probably need to get used to letting them spit the fry in the main tank and letting them get eaten unless you plan on setting up an assortment of fry and grow-out tanks. In nicely rockscaped tanks, the odd fry will survive on their own, and in my experience it’s much more rewarding to see a fry grow and join the adults all by themselves than to hand raise them, which for these fish is remarkably easy and no real feat, and high survival rates are fairly easy to achieve.
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