[poohbeah]

My jewel cichlid has laid eggs three times already but no young. do they normally just lay eggs and take a chance waiting for a male or can i assume that i have a breeding pair with one male and female?

 

[Daz]

Are they getting eaten by anything else in the tank ?

 

[Gump]

What color are the eggs?

 

[poohbeah]

If you mean the jewels, no. they the biggest fish in my tank and they guard those eggs with their life. after like 3 or 4 days the eggs start dissapearing so i assume they eat it if it is not fertilised.

 

[Daz]

Well you can possibly say there eating them, themselves.

 

[poohbeah]

the eggs are like a glass opague colour but this morning i saw that a couple of them were white. the jewels are tsill guarding them though. i think the jewels eat them after a certain period of time when they are not fertilised. does this mean that the male is too young to fertilise the eggs?

 

[Lupin]

I wouldn't say the young male is too young to fertilize the eggs but they probably failed to fertilize the eggs.

 

[poohbeah]

Another thing i need to know is that i've got one pleco and 5 red eye tetras in the same tank. my tank is also well planted. would it be ok for me to leave the fry in the tank or should i also get a smaller breeding tank? i'm new to all this breeding stuff. never had eggs before nevermind fry.

 

[poohbeah]

success. i have fry. they dug a hole and move it there. now i just have to wait and see if anything survives.

 

[poohbeah]

now that i have fry will it be ok for me to continue feeding as usual or is there something special i must get from the fish shop (food wise)?

 

[Daz]

Grind up some quality flake, and scatter near the fry.

 

[poohbeah]

thanks for the tip but do you have a fancy tip of how i can get the ground up flakes to them. the jewels dug a whole like semi underneath a piece of log i've got in the tank. i can make something like a rod type thing thing but i don't want to disturb to much near the fry cause i'mscared i might chase the jewels away and they might not return to the fry (or am i to paranoid?)

 

[Gump]

feed the parents and they will feed the fry for you. no need to make special food for them.

 

[poohbeah]

they are still there on day three. will take some photos and post it on monday.

 

[Amphitrite]

Congrats. Look forward to seeing the pics

 

[poohbeah]

can't seem to get pics on site.

 

[Amphitrite]

Try this:

http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5213

And make sure that your pics aren't too big or they won't upload.

 

[poohbeah]

Finally i got it working. These are my pride and joy. on the left i think is the male and obviously the other one is the female. the reason i say this is because the "male" is a lot more aggressive towards my other fish and he is bigger than the "female". i also read somewhere that the shiny blue spots is more prominant on the male than on the female. you can't see the babies though but i will try and get a better pic of them soon.