Keeping Cyprichromis Fry Alive

Hey Dave,
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it. I understand what you're saying about the fry being held too long by a female and being malnourished when they are finally released. The last ones I lost were fry I stripped from a female. They still had a small amount of egg sack left but were swimming around fine. These are the ones I put into a floating, plastic breeder trap and left them in the same tank with the adults. By the next morning, they were dead.
I've had luck tumbling Cyprichromis eggs that only showed heads and tails to a small degree when I first stripped them from the female. I've also had luck stripping fully formed fry. It's always in a tank holding well aged water from my tap along with that water being filtered through Purigen or activated carbon that I have the luck in. The fry aren't having a malnutrition problem. I still believe there is something in my tap water that the newborn fry just can't handle.

I've tried something else that has worked twice for me now. I put newly fertilized eggs in a tumbler and have been having good luck doing that. I also had some half developed fry in the tumbler with the new eggs. The eggs and fry were stripped from females that reside in an 85 gallon tank and placed into a tumbler that is running in a 20 gallon tank. The 20 gallon tank houses a light load of fish on a constant basis.
The half developed fry in the tumbler died in about a day, as has normally has happened to me in the past. The eggs have been in the tumbler for a number of days now and are turning into fry normally. I have accomplished this one other time. I guess whatever change that takes place in the environment is handled much better by fresh, undeveloped eggs than half developed or almost fully developed fry. I will try stripping females as soon as they breed in the near future and see if I can duplicate my success.

Thank you for your input punman. I appreciate it!
The eggs in the tumbler are still doing well. They are now fish with egg sacks and seem to be coming along nicely.
Yesterday afternoon, I stripped a Paracyprichromis female and got 3 fully formed fry from her. I put them in a fry saver that has forced water circulation and added a minute amount of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs to it. I thought that having them in the fry saver with good water circulation (not an overbearing amount) would be an improvement over them being in a breeder trap with no forced circulation.
I checked on them last night at midnight and they seemed fine. This morning when I checked them, they all were dead. This is what normally happens. They never quite last for 24 hours.
I'm sure that in a few more days when the ones in the tumbler are fully formed, I'll remove them and they'll do well for me. What a mystery this is to me!

Cyps are not a species that can tolerate low O2 in my experience and fry find it deadly.

A fry trap that has an air lift (water continuously pumps into it and flows outwards into main tank) had a 100% success rate for me in the tank with the parents in it. Odd that it failed for the 3 paracyps, though that might have been the decapsulated eggs at fault. Not fond of them for these fry and I prefer simple ground up NLS grow. I also vacuum out all debris at the bottom of the cage if any traps... every day. I've also used very large tanks for a grow out tank. The minimum size that I used to use was a 20g tank with a 10g sump... the bioballs in the wetdry worked very well for oxygenation.

If I were you, the first thing I would try and do is increase the oxygen level of the main tank... even if the adults show no signs of needing it. The other thing would be to get my hands on a 20g tank for growing out fry... :thumb: