Unexpected Supprise!

[cyradis4]

Well, if it were expected, then I suppose I wouldn't have been surprised....

Anyway, when I was looking into my Cynotilapia Afra tank the other day, I saw this little flicker of movement. Then, after several more minutes of patient waiting, I saw it! A little half inch or so baby....

In retrospect, its pretty obvious that if you have several females and a male in a stable tank, then they will breed.... I just hadn't taken a close look at the fish!

My question is: Do you guys know of any way to catch those elusive little buggers (I saw two, one much smaller then the other and there might be many more, there are a LOT of hiding places and the light is not strong) without taking the tank down or getting them eaten?

Thanks!
Amanda.

 

[maddog10]

That is why I take my females out while they are still holding, all the babies end up where I want them.
If it is 1/2" it is fine, newborn fry are the tasty morsels that the adults can't pass up!

 

[cyradis4]

I missed seeing the holding female...... There are SOOO many hiding places and as dad said, "You SHOULD have oriented them so you could see into those spaces!"

And my record to date with holding females is really crappy..... Once, a trewavasae female swallowed her eggs I think, and the other time I didn't realize she was holding until she was in another tank with another fish to recuperate from getting a chunk taken out of her side and out of her tail (about half of it) for the SECOND time.

But I'm glad to hear that that little guy is probably safe where he is!

Amanda.

Oh, and these are the Afra Puluus I got from you earlier this year.....

 

[Charlutz]

If you're patient you can eventually get them. Use any of the established methods for getting fish out of a heavily rocked tank -- try at night with a flashlight when they are sleeping and hope to catch them drifting in the open, leave some nets in the tank and hope to catch them swimming nearby, use a piece of plastic sheet as a divider during a water change and try to trap them in a corner, make a fish trap out of a plastic bottle. One of the methods will work eventually.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

I think the idea is to assemble the tank with the idea of making it easy to break down. The easiest way to do this is with bare bottomed tanks with floating plants, or plants rooted in plastic tubs of gravel. I like to breed fish, so nearly all my tanks are set up this way.

I have only one show tank--a 65 gallon high. Right now, it's full of baby Nandopsis salvini, a couple of lava rocks for structure, and some tough native val that hasn't taken off yet.

Once the salvini are big enough to move out, I'm leaning toward assembling some kind of removable rock wall and setting up a Malawi tank with Labidochromis caeruleus and some fish that will be compatable with them.

Michael Cavagnaro had a good idea of using lava rock siliconed to pieces of slate--lava rock has a lot of air spaces, so it's lighter than solid rock and won't stress the glass as much. I guess the trick would be to assemble the rock wall in two or three detachable pieces, so it's not too heavy to pick up and pull out of the tank, for situations when I need to remove a female with a mouth full of eggs.

If you're patient you can eventually get them. Use any of the established methods for getting fish out of a heavily rocked tank -- try at night with a flashlight when they are sleeping and hope to catch them drifting in the open, leave some nets in the tank and hope to catch them swimming nearby, use a piece of plastic sheet as a divider during a water change and try to trap them in a corner, make a fish trap out of a plastic bottle. One of the methods will work eventually.[/b]