Shocked into infanticide

[Greengirl]

I come home from a weekend trip in NYC to find my angels already have another batch of wigglers. I turn on my room lights and then the tank lights and go about the house feeding all the fish. I come back and the pair were gobbling up all their fry. There are none left now. Why would they do that? I pop in all the time and turn on their light while they are raising their fry. This is the first time they ate up the wigglers for no appearant reason. Good thing they are so prolific. I'll have another spawn next week. I already have two spawns I'm keeping in separate tanks.

 

[mchambers]

Alexandra,

I have read that in other cichlids (pelvicachromis, to be specific), that sudden light changes can trigger this. Why it happened to your fish this particular time I don't know, except that perhaps your fish reacted this way because the light increase followed a prolonged period without lights (your weekend in NYC).

I have not experienced this with my fish, luckily.

Matt