Fry not safe

[barbarpapa]

My bristle-nose placo laid eggs in a very unprotected place, dad is on guard but when these guys are free swimming they will be right out in the open, guppies and tetras are already interested in a snack, today is day 2 and all eggs look nice and orange. Question is if and when should I take action. I set up an extra 10g just in case I also have a mesh style breeder box if that is the way to go. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you

 

[Istrom]

Leave them be. At least some babies will live either way, and the parents won't be stressed that their eggs are just gone.

 

[Gillie]

Pleco fry may be too large at free swimming to be bothered by tetras or guppies and they are definitely tougher than you think

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[barbarpapa]

The eggs all turned white in about 8 days, there are lots of caves in the tank but he/she chose to use the water to lay eggs, dad stayed with them the whole time. Added more & smaller caves with my fingers crossed.

 

[BBradbury]

Eggs in the Tank

My bristle-nose placo laid eggs in a very unprotected place, dad is on guard but when these guys are free swimming they will be right out in the open, guppies and tetras are already interested in a snack, today is day 2 and all eggs look nice and orange. Question is if and when should I take action. I set up an extra 10g just in case I also have a mesh style breeder box if that is the way to go. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Hello barb...

Moving fish is stressful for all concerned. If you want a high fry survival rate, then just feed all the fish a little more and feed more often. Well fed adult fish are seldom interested in the fry.

B

 

[barbarpapa]

The reason I am so concerned about the placo fry is because even with large amount of floating hornwort and elodea in the tank I never see any guppy fry with at least 2 constantly pregnant endlers in the tank for over a year. I think the red tetras are feasting from time to time. these albino bristle noses would be great to with my fls.

 

[ctsfishtank]

I would watch them carefully and when you see fry swimming/clinging to the walls of tank, transfer with a net to the mesh box. This is tricky because if they develop to the point of exploring and you're not near, they will be a snack for other fish. We now have our albino bn plecos in a separate 29 gal tank so we don't have to worry about other fish gobbling them up. We had a case of ich that took out a lot of fish including two batches of albino bn pleco fry. After treating the tank to be sure we were free of the ich, we transferred momma and daddy pleco to second tank. We found on Sunday morning a new batch of little fry swimming around...we were thrilled!