omg,, i bought the male last sunday.. bought the female the next day and now its thursday and they have layed eggs... what the hell do i do.. will the fry get sucked up the filter.. how can i prevent this...

depends how powerful ya filter is and ermm place a rock or sumthing for the babies to hide in other wise theyll be eaten ,Thats if ya want them other wise just leave them be.
My malawis breed all the time if any survive its a bonus but nine times out of ten the fry get scoffed

can always put tighs on the filter inlet to stop the fry getting in

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yeah thats rubbish. know what your talking about before advising people. with malawis or most other fish that would be true but American cichlids are mostly very protective of their babies and will not eat them in most cases. the only time they do that is if they cannot protect the babies or they are stressed beyond a reasonable level.



anywho. Nice one. keep the fry in there for 8-9 days and the parents will naturally cull the weak ones. Then take them out to grow on. they would be ok for up to two weeks but best to take them out to get the female cycling as soon as possible. The male will get bored after 2 weeks. He shouldn't kill the babies but will hassle the female to try and breed. This is when most females are killed and you might want to seperate for a few weeks to allow the female to rest.

You might find the dovii will eat their eggs/very young fry. This is purely inexperience as they are a young pair with what is their first eggs as a pair. this is often just a test run for them and they may eat the young and lay some more later which they should protect. they may have 2/3 'test runs'. if they reguarly kill the eggs or babies then they are either being stressed out, or have some other form of problem. maybe poor water quality. but dovii are easy to cater for as babies are concerned. small food and get them onto a decent pellet food as soon as possible and they will rocket to size. the hardest bit is keeping the female safe from the male's over eagerness to breed. let me know how you go. If you need any help feel free to pm or email. I've done pretty well with my breeding dovii and im happy to help if i can

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ok cheers mate... much apreciated

[quote=mike515;1484015]yeah thats rubbish. know what your talking about before advising people.

Hmmmm after keeping a breeding pair of doviis amongst other fish might think i know what im on about !!!

What i should have done is asked where his inlet pipe is compared to eggs as my pair were forever laying the eggs nr the inlet pipe didn't matter where i put it , if hes using a external canister for filtration as some of the gaurds have large holes ie eheim being large and fluval being small etc etc,And not having a spare tank to place the fry in they hence got ate by the male as you both know they can be insanely aggressive.

Next time if i havent got time to do i proper answer ill pass ,lesson learnt

Good luck with the lil ones

seen you've joined up on Cichlids south east. If he posts on your thread, listen to ukgrammodes. He knows his stuff. He's helped me quite a bit with most of my cichlids

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