EBRs Laid Eggs... What To Do?

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janky

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
Messages
269
Location
Tacoma, WA
So I'm pretty sure my EBR's laid eggs... they are these brownish colored circles all over a rock in the corner by some plants.
The pair is guarding these for dear life, and most of the rest of the fish are pretty cool about it and leaving them alone.

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Do I need to move them into another tank and let this process run through? I'm worried that the fry might not make it in my 75 g community with other fish and plecos.

I don't have another tank set up or anything, but I do have a spare 10 g.
It wouldn't be cycled, I'd just be dumping water from the 75 g into that ...

What do I do? Any ideas?
 
Rams are fairly difficult to grow out as it is. Mine were always terrible at parenting so even in their own tank I'd have to pull eggs.

The best method is to pull the eggs and rear them yourself. There's plenty of writeups on it so I won't go into detail.
 
So I need to just move the eggs into another tank? Should I bring on of the rams too or just the rock with the eggs? I'll have to google it. I am clueless when it comes to breeding!!
 
If you can take some of the filter media from your main tank and add it to the filter in your 10 gallon it would be instantly cycled.
 
You can try moving the parents, but that doesn't keep them from eating the eggs/fry randomly. If they are good at parenting they may keep the eggs fungus free and rear the fry, but odds are they won't.

Getting rams to breed is easy, it happens to people all the time on here, but how many actually have grown out fry from it?

I suggest looking into artificially hatching/raising fry, there is a wealth of info on the subject already, but feel free to post any questions that pop up in your research.
 
If you can take some of the filter media from your main tank and add it to the filter in your 10 gallon it would be instantly cycled.

I dont have a filter for the 10 g.
I'll go buy one first thing tomorrow, but for today all I can do is put them in the tank. I used the water from my 75 g, and I had a spare heater... so right now that's all I've got. No light, no filter.
The tank is set up on a dresser across the room from a window, so they'll get some natural day light... and I'll just have to get a filter w sponge tomorrow.

jeta; I read that the first couple of times around the parents usually eat the eggs. I also read they breed every month once a pair is formed... so there's hope even if this batch doesn't pan out.

Now that I have a pair, should I leave them set up in the breeding tank?
 
jeta; I read that the first couple of times around the parents usually eat the eggs.
That's what everyone says, but from what I've seen and know they tend to always eat the eggs even after a few tries. If ram breeding was easy you'd see more hobbyists selling them, but that's something I can honestly say I have only seen once in a blue moon. It was one reason why I got into breeding them to begin with, but their fragility made me wash my hands of the whole thing.

I also read they breed every month once a pair is formed... so there's hope even if this batch doesn't pan out.
More like once a week to 2 weeks, just keep them fat and happy.

Now that I have a pair, should I leave them set up in the breeding tank?
That's up to you, if you want to try to let them raise naturally then their own tank is the only way to go, but if you go artificial they can stay in the community.
 
Thanks jeta! Yeah I am completely new to this so I wanna see it through. The people at the lfs even said "Good luck ever getting them to breed", but I chose these two because I saw them as a pair, stickin by each other and chasing off the others :lol:

I think I wll leave them in the 10 g. I'd like to have them in the community, but it seems like moving them back and forth from breeder to community to breeder to community etc etc etc would just be stressful to them.

If I get sick of the failed attempts and nothing comes of it, I'll just leave them in the big tank and let the plecos snack on delicious ebr eggs when they spawn :D


When you say "artificial" you are talking about me removing the rock/eggs when they spawn and transferring that to the breeding tank to raise myself while they stay in the community?
 
Yes that's what I mean by artificial. If you wait for them to get to wiggler stage it's a lot easier, but it can still be done by transferring the eggs, just be sure to set up some sort of bubbler to pass water over the eggs, it'll help keep fungus at bay. You could also add methylene blue or some other anti fungal, and if you see any eggs go white use an eye dropper to remove them.
 
can do!
I have a splitter and plenty of tubing so since the 'breeder' tank is located next to my gf's tank I'll just split off some from her air pump and drop an air stone in there tomorrow morning. If I can find one laying around... lol
 
The only Rams I've ever had raise fry naturally with no problem were wild ones, they arte actually great parents. I've noticed that interaction between parent/s and fry in some dwarf species is detrimental, believe it or not they do learn many things like parental skills from the adults and many of the breeders of the tank strains hatch artificially so these fish never had a chance to learn that aspect.
 
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