[vivi]

i breed benga cichlids which are mouth brooders. *** heard the best way to extract the babies is by catching the mother and holding her while using a tooth pick to open her mouth and the babies fall out and are caught by a bucket of water or whatever below the mother. is this way? also everytime i do this the mother will swim almost vertical and bouce around, is this normal? anyway to prevent this? thanks

 

[houstonhimself]

When I am stripping my eureka reds I will just hold the mother in my hand gently but not so loose that she can wiggle out of my hand. She gets stressed and starts spitting the fry out, usually it only takes a few seconds before she gives um up.

I've heard the best way to extract the babies is by catching the mother and holding her while using a tooth pick to open her mouth and the babies fall out and are caught by a bucket of water

This is basically the same idea but I wouldn't use anything to pointy a pen cap works really well.

Also with the mother swimming wildly you would too if you were a fish and someone was tryin to catch you... :fish:

Good luck with the fry. :thumb:

 

[eoconnor]

i use my fingernail, my bengas didn't breed, had them in 1m/2f ratio in a 5ft tank, and then all by themselves in a 3ft breeder. any tips you've noticed specific to bengas?

Cheers,
Eric

 

[vivi]

She swims like that once i put her back in. I think next time im going to hold one face down but under water and see if that helps. my fingernail wont work because my femals arent full grown as it is and theyre a smaller species plus i have fat fingers. as far as getting them to breed i dont know theyre my first fish really but i have 1 male and 5 femals in my 55 gallon with only snails besides them. i just feed mostly pellet food with some flake food and some leftover saltwater food like mysis. the only thing i do for my water is water changes maybe twice a month and try to keep the pH up even though it stays at about 7.5 and should be 8.0 i think. *** had them for about 5 months that might have something to do with it.

 

[danielratti]

to get them to breed good you need to have the right ph, tempeture,and feeding them things like brine shrimp to condition them to breed i have a quad of wild caught Aulonocara stuartgranti Cobue Mozambiques 1:3 and i have had 2 hold full term and have about 120 fry from them and i breed them in a 20 long.

 

[Dewdrop]

Yes, you are suppose to strip them under water, not hold them above the water to do it. That's probably why she swam funny. It's not good to hold a fish out of water :? .

 

[eoconnor]

Temp=78, ph=8, hardness=very hard london/limescale water. I usually give them brine or mysis every 3rd day, NLS otherwise, should I step up the brine to pellet ratio?

I strip all my fish above the water, I push on their bottom lip with my fingernail and plunge their head up and down in the water until the fry stop coming out, it usually takes 10-15 seconds. Never had an injury or fatality and have so far stripped about 30-40 fish.