Re: well if its not one its the other... A. uaupesi "red-wedge"

["alex pastor" <alexp@idirect.com>]

How big is your 'community ' tank?  Sometimes fish will spawn, and then eat
their fry at the wriggler stage because they don't feel secure enough to
raise the kids.  All kinds of animals will do this.  They don't want to
waste their energy and food stores on what they 'feel' is a hopeless
situation.  It sounds like your fish have spawned for sure.  Do you have
anywhere else that you can put their competitors?  Once the female has her
fry out free-swimming you may even have to pull the male.  Sometimes, and it
doesn't even depend on the size of the tank, the female will get ready to
spawn again when the fry are only about four weeks old.  Then, before you
get a chance to do anything about it, she'll eat the fry and spawn again.
If you take the male out, she'll usually look after them for a couple more
weeks than usual, but because she does not have a male to spawn with again,
she won't perceive the fry as competitors to her next batch, and she'll
leave them alone.

It's really sad to see females gobble up their fry.  They are so used to
coming up to her for safety under usual circimstances, they know no better,
and get eaten.

The only fish that I know of who stay in multi-generational groups are Kribs
and Lamp. brichardi. With the brichardis, the older brothers and sisters
even look after the younger ones.  There may be a few other African species
that do the same thing also, but definitely not Apistos.

Some people like to keep dither fish around so that at least for a while the
male is busy defending the territory against relatively innocuous fish.  I
have found however,  that even supposed non-threatening fish like Neon
Tetras or White Cloud Mountain fish will take advantage of any fry that
strays a few inches from it's mother.  For this reason, I  keep moms alone
with their fry if I want to have a large survival rate.

g. kadar




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