Lost My Jewel cichlid fry again

[Shell Dweller]

A few weeks ago my jewel cichlids had a spawn and I had quite a few fry. These are in a 90 gal with 20 or so other cichlids. The parents seemed to be doing a good job of protecting the fry so I let them be. A week later they were gone. My guess is they were snacks for the other cichlids one night. So a week ago again we have new fry. This time I rigged up a divider made from plastic mesh from the craft store. I put it in the tank leaving the parents and fry the last foot of space, the other cichlids having the other 3 feet. I realized the fry could swim through the mesh but figured they would be safe until they grew up somewhat. Everything was going fine for a few days and then the male parent decided to escape. He removed the gravel and made a tunnel of sorts at the bottom corner. My wife said he actually got stuck at the bottom but eventually made his way through with no apparent damage to himself. This is when we noticed that the fry had disappeared again. So either the male ate the fry or both parents ate the fry. The female seemed to be content staying put on the protective side of the divider. I have removed the divider and will await some new fry once again.


So the question is what should I do next time. Put the divider back in keeping all the adults including the parents separated from the fry, or maybe just leaving the female with the fry?

BTW....It was quite easy to make a divider for this tank using 4 sheets of the plastic mesh. I measured the inside dimensions of the tank ( EG 18 inch depth, 18 inch tall,) then laid the pieces out on the table to the same dimensions, and where they overlapped I used 1/8 hard wood doweling in 1/2 inch long pieces as pegs to hold the pieces together. Note...make it a little wider than the tank so it will sort of wedge itself in between the glass front to back. I also buried the bottom into the substrate. A+ is that this way I can remove the wooden pegs and make it smaller or larger for a different size tank. Total cost was about $5, and is as good or better than the commercially made ones for $20.

[mdwflyer]

I'm not an expert, only had baby cichlids once.

One of my yellow labs was obviously carrying babies, so I went to Rogers to buy one of those segregation nets or whatever he recommended. He actually suggested against keeping the babies in a baby net with cichlids because the bigger one's could chomp the babies through the net. Fair enough, I have a small hospital tank.

He happened to have some pregnant cichlids, so he showed how to get the babies into a smaller bucket by carefully opening the mothers mouth into the water. With all the babies out, mother went right back into the main tank.

I went home and did the same, I did find it challenging getting the babies out...

They have been pigging out on ground up NLS ever since...

Roger said when you first notice the fish is pregnant wait 14 days and they should be ready.

[pistolpete]

Jewels are not mouth brooders, so stripping them is not an option. Fry often follow the parents around, so they may have followed the male into the community part of the tank and then been eaten. Parents sometimes eat their fry if they are getting stressed, so better to have the divider in place before they spawn again to give them peace. The main secret to raising fry is to give them lots of food. 3 to 4 meals/ day is not too much. Also a big bunch of java moss will give them infusoria to snack on. I find microworms to be the easiest fry food.

[mdwflyer]

Cool, always good to learn something new every day :-)