Changing to cichlids

[Beehpee]

Hi All, so I've another question re my convicts, as I said before the female is spending a lot of time in the pipe I buried and now when I look in the open end there is as lot of what I presume are her eggs, they are probably about 1mm in size and are a light beige colour, would that be what you would expect, they seem to be stuck to the side of the pipe and while either her or the male is hanging around most of the time it's not all of the time, probably 90% of the time one of them is on guard even to the point of rushing forward when I approach the tank, all very interesting as I've never actually seen this from the egg stage so hoping to actually see them hatch (is hatch the right word?)

BP.



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[mikem691]

Sounds right to me. Once they hatch the aggression will be 10 fold. Any tank mates will be fair game

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[Beehpee]

Here's a picture of the convict eggs, the brown spots are the eggs, wasn't sure if were fertilised but can now see a tiny black spot developing on each egg, I'm aware I may have aggression issues but you can't deny it's fascinating to observe new life happening in front of you, what do you think of the idea of sucking the fry up as they hatch and putting into a breeder net or better still another tank? Thought maybe use a turkey baster to suck them up?


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[Beehpee]

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[Dotrskeeper]

I wonder if you even need to wait until they hatch. Maybe just pick up the pipe and put it in an otherwise empty tank. I think the mother just provides protection not any other "supportive care"


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[Beehpee]

I seem to remember reading she fans the eggs to keep them fresh/oxygenated or something like that?


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[Beehpee]

Wow well it's all happening now, the eggs seem to have what I guess is gonna be fry tail coming out of it just looks like single small hair and they are all how can I put it....sort of vibrating and moving about in a random fashion so I'm guessing they are in process of hatching, amazing, such a privilege to see things unfold.

BP






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[mikem691]

Very cool

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[Beehpee]

So right or not I've got a breeder tank with heater, filter that has been filled with media out of main tank filter, water put in the breeder out of main tank as well as a couple of rocks and plants out of main tank also, I've then transferred the pipe containing the convict wrigglers to this tank, I witnessed the ferocity of the adult convicts when I scooped up the pipe, eggs and some gravel in a net, the way they attacked the net was a surprise, almost knocked it from my hand as I wasn't expecting it to be so ferocious, anyway so now to see if the wrigglers live, I decided to do this as although it could work out expensive I want to see this through to having free swimming healthy fry, the expense might happen when I can't let them go and end up spending out on another big tank, cross that bridge when it happens lol

BP


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