As we speak my german blue female ram is laying eggs in the corner of my tank. less than 2 weeks ago I was worried that my male was going to kill my female because the spawning process was very hard on her. I trained my male not to chase my female by putting my hand in the tank and chasing him into a corner with my finger. Although this may sound slightly "cruel" I can say that within about 3 days (I had to chase him only about 10 times in these 3 days, he learned extremely quickly) he stopped chasing my female and she regained her color within another day. Now they are both very peaceful and, as I said, she is laying eggs right now. I'll put up some pictures when there are enough of them to see them, as for now, I have to move my loach so he doesn't eat my eggs tonight!
top: male on right female on left (white molly in the background was chased away promptly after I took the picture)
bottom: male alone
Can't see the eggs but you can see the little indentation they dug in the gravel to lay them in. I have a piece of red slate in there for them but my clown loach took that over so they opted for the corner as a nest I suppose. I've read that they will do this when unable to find a flat spot (their favorite I suppose? fish are weird). Anyways, I'll post more pics when they hatch, you could probably see the eggs now but there's dust from my gravel on the side and I don't want to scare my rams or disturb the eggs by trying to clean it. I can't wait for them to hatch!!!
p.s. I tried to size the pics down for a little better quality but they didn't stay that way when I posted, sorry for the blurriness, I'm still trying to get good at taking pictures of my fish.
This batch might not hatch. Sometimes it takes cichlids a few practice runs before they feel like they're really ready to give it their all. So, if they don't hatch this time, be patient and you will probably get some fry!
Alright, I have a couple questions though. First of all, do you think I should try to move my eggs and hatch them in another tank or should I leave them in this tank until they hatch and then move them? I think I'm going to move them to a different tank to raise them either way, I'm just trying to decide the best method. Also, I purchased my rams at the same time from the same store, so there's a chance they're from the same litter (idk what the word is for group of baby fish). I assumed they wouldn't breed if they're from the same litter but I'm not sure, are there any dangers with inbreeding fish (I would imagine there are), if they will even inbreed? Also I noticed my male trying to eat the eggs (I think anyways, he's really smart so he wouldn't do it when I was looking at him), so I cut some holes in a plastic piece of an old filter pad to let fry through and put it over the eggs, it just sits above them so they can't get eaten, here's a pic:
I had to trick the male into letting me put it down there, he attacked the !&$# out of me, and the plastic thing. I thought he might actually hurt me for a second lol. I had to trick him by feeding them and then sneaking it down there while he was busy, worked out pretty well.
Well as a change of plans I removed the plastic egg protector I came up with as my male was acting really weird about it (sitting directly on top of it). Only experience can teach you about some of this stuff I guess, after removing it he hasn't eaten any more eggs, I think he may have just been moving eggs from place to place with his mouth, either way he isn't eating them now. To my surprise (or dismay, I'm out of empty tanks) my mollies had about 20 babies last night as well. I already have a VERY fully stocked 5 gallon with baby mollies, looks like I have to go buy a 10 today or something... I would leave them in my 30 but it's already pretty well stocked, if anybody wants any free mollies that lives around IL, you can have as many as you can handle. I don't know what I'm gonna do with all of them, wish me luck lol.
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