do I remove her or not...

[RyanH]

One of my pairs finally got wigglers last week and one of them ate the babies. I have a hunch that it was the female but I'm not certain. After some discussion with others on the board, I had been considering pulling her out but now I am having second thoughts.

My concerns are:

1. Breaking the bond that they have.

2. Throught the process of getting her out I freak out the male and he ends up eating the eggs/wigglers anyway.

3. Maybe she'll get her act together this time.

What are your experiences in this situation? I appreciate the feedback!

Thanks! -Ryan

[EthanCote.com]

Hi Ryan,

Just a thot, rather than taking her out of the tank, why not put a divider? That way she gets to see her younglings. That way she knows those eggs will hatch out to these cute little babies and hopefully won't eat them eggs no more.

I too have a problem with egg eating and it did turn out to be the female.

I have heard that egg eating is due to:
- a learned behaviour
- an inexperience breeder
- nervousness/skittish
- worms/parasites in their tummies that cause hunger pain (read this somewhere) - so i would check for any sign of dieases.



Best of luck.


Cheerio,

Chi.

[RyanH]

She would take great care of the eggs and once they became wigglers she would take care of them for awhile. She even moved them a couple of times and then right before they became free swimming she would eat them. It was almost like she was getting pissed that they were falling off of the pot and she was tired of picking them up and spitting them back on. :-\

[RyanH]

Hey Chi,

When you say "inexperienced breeder" were you referring to me or my fish? I guess either way you'd be right! :)

Chi has covered most of the possiblities. It's uncommon for a pair to eat wrigglers. Did you feed the parents after the egg had hatched? I've dissected a few wriggler eaters in the pass and found this problem is mostly caused by an very lively hungry worm in the stomach start seaching for food and moving around the internal organs of the fish which may have caused some discomfort. Natural instinct kicks in and start protecting the wrigglers by eating them. I always remember when I scared my cat to eat the babies when I was very little. Handling and touching the kittens. It was horrible in the eye of a child. Try deworming and de-fluke the pair before the next spawn will help.
Jimmy.

[EthanCote.com]

hehe Ryan, I was referring to you. ;D kidding.

Hey Jimmy, would the rock salt help in this case? Would them consuming rock salt help rid them of any internal parasites?


Cheerio,

Chi.

[Smokey]

Howdy:
I am with Chi. A divider would cause much less stress, same water, etc..

JimmyL;

Thanks for the insight. An internal worm ... hmmmm - pesky little things...lol..

I have not dewormed any of my discus, yet. Sounds like I should consider a treatment. right. [??]

Smokey

[melvindy]

Is it possible that a male who previously ate the fertilized eggs would do it again in the next spawn? It's his 1st time to breed and i was just wondering if he'd change this habit as it gets more mature? By'd way, the pair spawned in a community tank with other discus. Hope anyone could share his/her knowledge on this matter. Thanks.

[RyanH]

thanks for the feedback everyone. I will check into dividers for my tank this weekend. They have spawned again and there are a few fry left that they are taking care of. They should go free-swimming tonight. I'll keep you posted...

[Smokey]

Thank for the feedback. J.

Ryan, any news, update??

melvindy; there is always a possibility. Can you place the pair into their own tank ?

Smokey

[Mqueen]

I had this exact problem. The father is gold and she is brown so the very little babies are drawn to her. She started eating the last batch at about one week into them swimming. I think she wanted to lay eggs again. The male started getting pissed and beating her in the corner. I tried the divider made out of egg crate. Once the babies swam through she was pissed and ate at least one before I could pull her. I managed to save about ten and the father and I sucessfully raised.

The pair have a bunch of eggs on the cone tonight. I do not want to pull her out each time because of the stress. If she eats them again I will just have to pull her out each time.

[RyanH]

Hey Smokey,
Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I honestly didn't notice anyone was still posting on this thread.

The last batch was very small only 4 or 5 fry. They went free swimming but seemed to have a problem attaching. They wandered around the tank and eventually died. The parents spawned again a few days ago and now I have LOTS of wigglers. Close to 100 IME. When I sat and watched all those tails poking out of the eggs the other night I actually got a little bit scared. What the hell am I going to do with 100 fry? I guess I will just have to cull heavily.

Is there anything I can do to make attaching more likely this time? I am doing everything I can think of to make the tank as light-colored as possible. The logic being that the fry will hopefully go to the parents and not get lost in the tank. I am running a small power filter filled with carbon and fitted with a filtermax III pre-filter right now to take out the methyline blue. I will turn it off and remove it tomorrow before they go free-swimming.

Any little attaching tricks that you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!
-Ryan

[Smokey]

Ryan; I hear you.

" Perhaps" - clear water is not the answer. MPe.

There are so many parameters, - needed to successfully raise eggs to the free swimming stage.

"parents" will defend their young - even if it means "eating" them!

Smokey

P.S - S/D always keeps tabs on interesting/knowledgable posts.