Got eggs! Now what do I do

[D-money]

Well, my real nice JD pair finally got down to business and laid eggs..lots of eggs...completely covering a 10" x 4" piece of slate. There must be 500-600 eggs on that thing. My 4yr old daughter is tickled pink right now and is asking me tons of question, so I thought I would seek some advice:

-should I remove the male, female,or eggs? (currently in a 55g)
-will the fry eat crushed up flakes once they are free swimming?
-should we leave them alone and not "peek" at them constantly?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated

Dave

 

[Lively]

Leave the Dempsey's in - they are great parents! This spawn might not make it, since it is the first time. But, normally Dempsey's lay eggs every 4-6 weeks so if these don't work out, you can be sure that it won't be too long before you do get fry.

If they start to look white, they are getting fungus and won't make it - generally you lose some to this in every spawn, but the better the parents get at fanning the eggs, the lower your losses will be. 3-4 days (depending on temp) you might notice the fish "eating" the eggs - if you look really close, you should be able to see little tails sticking out of the eggs - it is really cool to watch this part - the parents are picking up the fry to move them to a pit for safety. At first, they will eat the minute stuff in the water - some people suggest baby brine shrimp after they become free swimming (about 2-3 days after hatching) I've always fed mine crushed flake and they've done fine on it.

Peeking is fine... unless you're scaring them. If they get too upset they might eat the whole spawn.

I wouldn't worry about taking the fry out for at least 4 weeks - or until they spawn again. It is a lot of fun watching the parents heard the fry around the tank. And, if it looks like they are eating them, they aren't - they catch wayward fry and spit them out where mom and dad think they belong.

 

[danger_chicken]

cichlid parenting is an awesome sight, you and your daughter are going to love the interaction. I like to feed Hikari First Bites to fry the first couple of weeks once free swimming and micro worms.

 

[minifoot77]

i feed mine like danger chicken but i and baby bring shrimp as well

 

[UNCLERUCKUS]

CONGRATS ! YES THEY ARE VERY GOOD PARENTS. YOUR LITTLE GIRL AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A GREAT TIME WITH THEM. I WISH YOU WELL WITH THEM.

 

[SkoolzofFish]

Congrats. Let the parents learn to be parents. If they laid once, if things go bad they'll most likely lay eggs again.

 

[D-money]

thx to all who replied..some good information