A little advice?

I ve been trying to get fry from this group of aeneocolors that *** had for a while now. They mate well and pretty often but females never hold to term as of yet. I didnt know if it was the 55g i had them in or if the females in this line had been stripped so much that these wont hold. I wasnt sure what the problem was. So here are the changes i made and i now have 2 females that have held the longest since i aquired them.

Some changes i did:

move them to a 30g tank, (no other tankmates). with no tank mates his focus is more on the females. and when he did chase the other females he was back on the slate within a second...very quick..this kept the female there instead of swimming away and having to be brought back.

filled the bottom of the tank with alot of rocks and slate. this tank has gravel instead of sand. (they used to mate on the sand in the 55g) i put a piece of flat slate on top of rocks in corner of tank (this is where they mated). I did notice during the mating.... that on this piece of slate it seemed that the male was mating in a better "circle". in the other tank he seemed more erratic in his mating... i now figure that to the wrong set up in the 55g.

waited after seeing them holding to feed any of the fish in the tank. (to keep the urge from holding females. And when i did feed i made sure not to put in too much at a time).

With the light feedings i did some smaller water changes compared to what i usually do. (10-15% i would guess). didnt what any difference in water temp to hurt eggs or stress females.

One other thing i did was that i didnt have the lights on as much either. All this seems to be working so far.

My email reminder popped up saying it was time for aeneocolors to be ready for release.

Now i just need some opinions on what to do next:

1) catch both females and take the fry

2) net the females and move them to a holding tank. (im just afraid they wont be holding after move via stress)

3) let them both release in the tank and wait until next time to get the fry so that way maybe their instinct will be better to hold and maybe get more fry in subsequent matings

or

4) remove the male and non- holding females from the 30g tank and wait for the females to release. (when females release...will they fight each other because of protecting the fry?). Maybe I should put a divider in the 30 for one on each side.

i know this is a long post here but i just figure id give all the details of progress.

any help or recommendations would be appreciated.

To my knowledge, there is no evidence of stripping causing the fry to not hold when they are adults. SOme females are just really bad at it, and others just require more practice to get it right.

I strip most of the time. Even if I am not intending to keep the fry, i will strip the females at about 19-20 days so she can get back to eating sooner. I also find that many females (especially those left in the main tank) may hold the fry longer than they should because they don't feel safe letting them out. This often causes fry death or deformaties from being squished in her mouth.

Many females will also spit when you net them. I try to avoid netting them too early so that any they spit out in the net are old enough to survive on their own.

If you do have more than one holding female in a maternity tank, then a divider would be best. The females will see each other as danger and this can again lead to the fry being held too long.

If you choose to let the females spit on their own, you must keep a very close eye on them. The female s must be removed as soon as possible after they release, or they will begin to munch on their own fry.