[Grizleyguy]

Hello all. I'm calling out for advice on hrp fry. How many days after eggs hatch can I remove the fry to a nursery tank. Also, how many days till egg nutrients are gone and fry need to be fed. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Auballagh]

Hmmmm.....
Best not to over-think this thing. The Honduran Red Point Cichlids I collected in the early to mid-2000's were mean, territorial - and made OUTSTANDING parents for their babies. To the extent even that I kept a spawning pair of those in with a single, female T. salvini in a 33 gallon 'long' tank. Those HRPs had no problem in keeping that predatory girl on her side of the tank!
Behavioral things have apparently changed a bit in this species with successive years of captive bred specimens now in the community. But, I'm betting some of those old, Central American Cichlid behaviors (esp. in fry protection) remain pretty much intact.
So to answer?
I would personally leave the babies in with the parents as long as possible. When tiny, the fry will tend to nibble a bit on the slime coat of both parents. This is a good thing. And will help to build better adult Cichlids with stronger immune systems, etc... My free swimming fry started pecking at (foam pre-filtered) filter intakes, and objects in the aquarium after a couple days or so. Offering high-quality flake foods (ground up a bit to a fine consistency), fresh hatched brine shrimp, or this stuff made by Hikari called 'First Bites', will probably be accepted by the fry at that point. Congrats on the new babies!

 

[Mazan]

I agree, there is no point in removing them, unless the tank is very overstocked with potential fry predators, or other fish in the tank are getting hammered by the parents. I am sure these will be good parents and it is much more interesting to keep them with the parents and observe how they care for the fry. If you remove them they will most likely spawn again very quickly. They will start to need food as soon as they are free swimming, a few days after hatching.

 

[Grizleyguy]

Thanks for the help. I definitely want the fry to have best chance at all possible immunities. The parents have been in a 30 gal along with 8 white cloud minnows. I wanted to separate fry to have the highest number of male fry. I want to start selectively breeding the male that closely resembles the awesome genes that the parent female has. I fig I should be able to backcross to get the awesome colors my female has. My male is not plain but looks more like convict with blue fins. Female has yellow, blue, green, and a lil purple. Have y'all tried selective breeding for colors. By the way the female is the fish on the right side of my profile pic. The fish on the left is a red devil convict hybrid I had to give away. It got to be a handful too fast

 

[Auballagh]

Heh.... not too surprised to hear that about your Red Devil-Convict cross. Definitely had my doubts from the start about that one. And well, sooner or later, I figured that was utlimately gonna happen.
(Hopefully 'Beast-Mode' will make someone an interesting, individually kept 'Wet Pet'?).
-
So, as far as the selective breeding thing goes? Sure! But, well... good luck with it. Your Cichlids get a vote in this thing as well, and with substrate spawning Cichlids these are never a certain thing. Sometimes you wind up with a male-female combo that would probably produce amazing off-spring - but unfortunately, the lovely pair just absolutely detest each other.
Yikes!
Kind of tough to get a cool breeding project off the ground, when it seems actual WAR has been declared between two knuckleheads in your aquarium....
But yes, that selective breeding thing is probably why the female you have looks so nice. The WC HRPs I brought back from Honduras certainly didn't look like that.

 

[Grizleyguy]

As usual you are full of useful info. Thanks again