Red Jewels surprise breeding

[fingaz]

I have two red jewel cichlids in a 150 gallon tank who bred without me knowing it. they must have bred inside a fake stump deco that i have, it has a cave in it that i cant see into where they must have laid eggs. there is also 1 jackdempsey 2 convicts an oscar and one other red jewel cichlid in the tank with them ph is about 7.4, ammonia is less than .25, temp is about 78 degrees, the parents have been guarding their fry which hatched this morning or last night there are about 50-80 fry the two parents seem to be getting along fine but they are harassing all the other fish as i would expect and forcing them to hide on the other side of the tank the parents are also not really eating anything and occassionally eating their fry. ive turned off my filters, and sump so they dont get sucked in

My question is should i move the parents and fry to another tank, just move the fry, leave them in the tank and make a barrier, or something else. ive read many conflicting ideas on a few different forums. Any advice on this issue is much appreciated

thanks

[alLexX]

are you sure they arent just moving them? it looks a lot like they are eating the fry when they move them. i leave my jewel fry in with the parents(but im going to experiment with a couple in a seperate 10 gallon) and they do alright,the parents just cant keep up with all the other fish munching on them. if i were you,i'd leave them in and see how they do. IME,jewels are amazing parents(well,fish-wise),on there first spawn mine had there fry last over a week. good luck

[Andy Sager]

If you intend on breeding these on purpose in the future, I'd set up the parents in another tank for the next spawn. If not, leave them all alone.

Rarely can you move a spawn and parents together with good results. If the fry aren't free swimming yet, you can take the spawning site and move it to a seperate tank. If the fry are free swimming, you can slowly siphon them and their water into another tank so you can feed them properly.

At some point, the fry most likely will either be eaten or starve in that sized tank without a good food source. Jewels can be good parents but you almost always get better spawns and hatchings when the fish are in a seperate tank with privacy.

Hope this helps

[fingaz]

right on, i have a 55 gal i was planning on setting up for them they have literally only been in their a week didnt think they would spawn so quickly and i looked a little closer and realized they were just moving their fry not eating them

thanks for the input guys

[bob mccoy]

you are going to have new fry every 15 to 20 days . wellmine do any way. see if your lfs will buy them . i get $1.00 each when they reach 2 inch

[alLexX]

Originally Posted by bob mccoy

you are going to have new fry every 15 to 20 days . wellmine do any way. see if your lfs will buy them . i get $1.00 each when they reach 2 inch

a buck each??? i NEED to get another tank. mine have fry pretty much constantly(2 females to 1 male,as soon as the fry from one are eaten,the other is full of eggs again)