Very interesting. I am about to procure six little Rams tomorrow and my guess is that they are tank bred. I will save this email and share my experience down the road. Rick r_gomes@msn.com - -----Original Message----- From: owner-apisto@listbox.com On Behalf Of Carlos Eduardo Alves Ribeiro Sent: Thursday, November 06, 1997 11:32 AM To: apisto@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: Microgeophagus ramirezi I`ve noticed in my tanks what I`ve just read in some books: the tank-bred M. ramirezi normally eats the eggs or the fry. I`ve tried more than 15 times to left the parents with the eggs unsuccessfully, the eggs or the fry were eaten. Later I tried with 3 tank-bred pairs from different sources and had the same bad results ... Last year I tried to breed a wild-caught pair of M. ramirezi and noticed that they were excellent parents.Can this deffective behavior of tank-bred M. ramirezi be caused by large scale production, where the eggs are removed from the parents, letting fish with this deffective behavior survive in large numbers (in the nature, the bad parents wouldn't let the offspring live) ? \\\\|//// / _ _ \ ( (o) (o) ) __________oOOO___(_)___OOOo_________ Carlos Eduardo Alves Ribeiro http://www.Montreal.com.br/~carlos.ideiafix fish@montreal.com.br Rio de Janeiro - Brazil