GBR First Spawn

[Chess46]

Great news, my German blue rams have spawned for the first time. They have laid about 200 eggs on one of the river rocks in my aquarium. Mom and dad are guarding them with their life!

Bad news, I have no idea what to do! Should I do everything as normal? Keep the lights off at night or leave them on full time now? Also, I have a regular canister filter. What can I do to prevent the fry (if they hatch) from being sucked up the filter?

Any tips would help. Thanks!

 

[ffmedic2800]

Congratulations!

 

[needmorecowbell]

Any time I turned the lights off in the tank when I had mine, the babies scattered. I also had some problems with the filter. I think sponge filters would have helped a lot. And maybe moonlights won't make them scatter as much.

 

[Chess46]

I have a light on it right now that isn't very bright but it still brings light in. Also, my Cory Dora's seem to want to eat the eggs. They keep trying to sneak in

 

[needmorecowbell]

Thats a problem.. Do you have a tank you could move them to?

 

[Chess46]

Not at the moment unfortunately. I wasn't expecting them to breed this soon. I just got them.

 

[Jonny2007]

Congratulations, and good luck mine have spawned three times with no babies. Are the eggs fertilized?

 

[Chess46]

The eggs were fertilized. Unfortunately, they ate the eggs. We'll just wait for the next time.

 

[needmorecowbell]

Well, good luck! They are quite hard to breed. If you have too much trouble with these, you could do Bolivian rams. I heard they are easier and look alike

 

[Jonny2007]

Mine keep doing the same thing, I think next time I'm going to move the eggs to a different tank and see how that goes.

 

[needmorecowbell]

If the eggs aren't cleaned they will die. That's why the gbrs rub their fins on the eggs. I don't know how you could replicate that safely

 

[jetajockey]

It's tricky to hatch and raise ram eggs/fry but it's not impossible. I've done it a few times successfully. If you wait for the eggs to go into the wiggler phase it knocks out a lot of the fungus issues.

If you pull them shortly after being laid, just remember to put them into a hatching tank that has tank water in it and a similar temperature, keep air flow over them and a small amount of methylene blue will help keep the eggs from fungusing.

 

[Jonny2007]

Would putting them near the filter's current help?

 

[jetajockey]

Yes, that'd help, but my best results have been just waiting as long as possible to remove them.

 

[needmorecowbell]

Here's a pic of mine