Mom ate attached fry

[diamond_discus]

Well, this is the second time .. that the parents ate the attached fry. They were good parents until after 2 days of free swimming. Both times I only have a few survivor left (< 5 fry attached). The attached fry were doing fine. All these times the parents seems annoyed by the attached fry. After a couple days, they just ate them all. Last night I was down to the last 3 frys attached to mom. After I did WC, mom decided to eat them all. Is this a learning process for the parents ? What can I do to prevent this next time ? It's not like the parent are hungry because they won't eat the food I normally feed them (color bits or frozen blood worm).

[1977]

Just stay patient, that's exactly what it is, learning process. When there is that few fry I don't think the parents feel it's worth while. the smallest group I've had survive is about 15 or 20 fry. It really takes awhile for some pairs to get it right, just look for the one eating and pull it before the fry freeswim in the future. They aren't doing it out of hunger.

[diamond_discus]

Well, I didn't know which one ate the fry the first time. But for the second time, I pull the dad and left mommy to raise the fry, simply because mom has darker color and I thought it would be easier for the fry to attach. The parent weren't fighting and someone suggested to me that I should leave both together next time to help them learn ..

[diamond_discus]

Well, at least I notice that they learned something the second time ... I will move the wrigglers to a cleaner side of the cone instead of spitting them back to the fungus white eggs. They were staying close to the clone, minimize their movement around the cone, pretty much staying still. One thing they didn't learn is to get rid off the fugus white egg. They were still guarding the white egg closely after the fry became free swimmers. Seems like they were waiting for the white egg to hatch. I have to use a spoon to help them clean up the fungus white egg ... They were attacking my plastic spoon like crazy, try to save the white egg..