I have a breeding pair of convicts in my 150g with several other fish and now I have about 100 fry in my tank they r teeny tiny at 1st I bought sum liquid fry food from my lfs and started feeding twice a day when they were 4r5 days old now they are about 3wks old (I'm guessing) so I'm goin this wk end and buying sum powder food called first bites I've had lots of luck with it in the past so u could try this approach hope it helps an good luck lol I never really bother seperating the fry from the parents sure u will lose sum throughout the process but I think the fry grow faster an are more healthy the parent cichlids are very good at defending their babies lol so good luck again
Thanks very much!
I have decided not to remove the parents either. The female is taking her mom job quite seriously and I can only guess that it would stress her out if I removed them. The male sort of doesn't seem to pay them any attention, but mom keeps him away in any case.
I seriously have no idea how old these are. I have tried several times today to see if they have orange bellies, but they are so darn small it is hard to see. I mean, I *think* I see an orange speck, but then again maybe I am imagining it because I want to see it.
I did try and feed them today -- the only thing I had on hand was some Infusyl (IIRC), which are these pink tablet things which dissolve slowly into a sort of cloud of food for fry. That went over like a lead brick -- not a single one paid any attention to it. Mom fish did peck at it though, and it did a great job polluting my frigging tank.
I am a bit worried because NOW I find out that I have to go away on business, last minute, leaving tomorrow morning and returning Friday evening. It is 8 pm here, so nothing is open to try and find another solution. I am going to have Mr. kindafishy attempt to feed them with my pink tablets, but I don't have a very good feeling about this. If that doesn't work, hopefully they can wait until the weekend to be fed.
Needless to say, baby fish were an enormous surprise and I am totally unprepared. It is so weird, I did absolutely NOTHING on the list of things you are supposed to do to get apistos to breed. Yeesh.