unclenedsfishfactory.com

Howdy. I've got a 55 gallon stocked with 6 Cynotilapia afra (Hai reef red top), 6 L. caerulus, and 3 Synodontis multipunctatus. The tank is heavily built up with rockwork (right up to the surface).

My afras have started breeding, which I'm very happy about. But I haven't been able to catch any of the females holding, even though I observe closely during feeding time. My first clue that they had begun mating was noticing a fry dart out to grab a piece of flake. As I was just about to move the tank to our new house, I was able to catch that fry, and also to find one other, after removing all the rock work and bagging the adults for the move. Those two are now in a 10 gallon, and seem to be visibly growing daily on a diet of crushed spirulina flake. I've got a 29 gallon that I'll be setting up later as a grow out tank.

However, today during feeding I saw another fry in one of the smaller caves. These guys are very good at staying in crevices where the other fish can't get at them, so there may very well be other fry in the tank as well, hiding where I can't see them. I'd like to move these new fry into the 10 gallon with the others, but I can't think of any way to catch them other than completely breaking the tank down again, which I'm loath to do. The other option I guess is to leave them in with the adults and hope they survive, although I worry about ones hiding where I can't see them since I can't be sure they're getting any food. Does anybody have any bright ideas about what to do?

Chris

I'd probably just leave them in there and don't worry about it.

In future, the best thing to do is,
after you find a female holding for say a week,
catch her, and put her in a small tank by herself.