3 labs brooding

[cleung]

Hey everyone,

I'm still quite new to this hobby but the other day I noticed that 3 of my yellow labs are brooding and I'm not quite sure what to do. I have an extra 10 gal tank that I can use, should I remove all three females and put them in the 10gal together? should I just leave them and let nature run its course?

If I take them out and put them in the 10gal when should I do this and is it ok for all 3 brooding fish to be in there together? How should I setup the 10gal?

[onefishtwofish]

if they r breeding age a 10gallon is too small for more than 1 female. It takes about 21 days for them to spit the babies. You will notice a very pronounced pouch under their chin.I leave mine in the tank as long as possible so they don't lose their rank. They can hold up to 30 babies each so you need to decide if you are going to set up more tanks to raise the babies. Some people catch the females out and gently manipulate the jaw to open and pull her out from under the babies while they r still in her mouth and return
her to the tank right away so she can eat.

As far as setting up the 10g, I would start cycling a filter on your main tank asap. If you r going to put a holding female in there she will need a hiding spot and a very thin layer of substrate. Taking it from your existing tank will help boost the cycle. Dont set it up until you are ready to use it right away or you could lose the "good" bacteria and it may go into a cycle again.
hope this helps a bit and I am sure others will offer their opinions as well.

[rich16]

Onefishtwofish beat me to it 10 gallon will be to small for 3 breeding age females. When did you notice that they were holding? 21-28 days is normal before they spit the fry. I just had a female zebra spit last night, first suspected she was holding eggs on Nov 29.

You could leave them in the main tank IF you don't really care about survival rates. A few of the smarter fry will make it. Just like nature.

Keep us posted!

[cleung]

I noticed all 3 of them holding this past weekend so I think it is still fairly early stages.

[clintgv]

Yep agreed. 10 gallon will be to small for 3 holding yellow labs. I would strip them on the 28 day mark if you want more survival rate. There are lots of easy way to strip the females. Search on YouTube there are plenty of videos in there to help you.

And as for the 10 gallon tank, to help cycle the 10 gallon tank faster, if you have a sponge filter running on your main, you could use that on the 10 gallon as your filter. When I had a 10 gallon tank set up for yellow lab fries a few months back, this is exactly what I did and after the labs were at the .75" - 1" mark, I added a hob filter. Good luck on the fries

[Slopster]

Highest survival rates get a Egg tumbler or two, or build one, strip the females place the eggs in the tumblers place the females back into main tank, and let the Tumbler do the work.
Now on too the stripping,the way I do it I catch the female gently hold her in one hand with her mouth in or Above a large Bowl of tank water, I use a small Syringe fill it with tank water and gently open her lower jaw with the tip of the Syringe and gently place the tip into her mouth then slowly push the syringe plunger, the eggs will be flushed out and into the bowl of tank water, continue until all the eggs are out then trnasfer the eggs into the tumbler, turn on the pump and there ya go.
This can also be done when the eggs have all hatched in her mouth instead of eggs you get fry

It may seem funny to do your first time but it gets easier she will squirm a bit when first out of the water but she will calm down, just be careful when holding the female that you are not to rough around her eye..

Hope that helps..

[cleung]

Thanks for the info guys. My other question now would be what do you guys do with all your new fish?

[Slopster]

I raise my fry in stages from a 10g then to a 20g then up into a 40g, I usually start selling them when they are around 1-1.5" in size.

Cheers.

[clintgv]

Like slopster said, I raise them in a 10 gallon and when 1" big I put them in to a bigger tank. Then keep some for the next generation for my main tank. And sell the rest.