My colonies have just spawned a couple of times and I have observed other tropheus going after fry. Not really hunted down but chased off into the rocks. I have lost fry too. Not sure if they got eaten or not but I assume so. It seems that if the fry can last a week or so after being spit they usually do ok. I keep river rocks in my tank with little nooks and crannies so they have somewhere to hide. Thought about stripping them but that seems like a real pain to me so I just let them spit and survival of the fittest from there. If you have a bare tank then stripping would be a good choice.

 

I use river rock and slate in my tank. I have lots of caves and crevices for the fry to hide in. If I have a release(usually around 7 fry) then maybe 3 will make it. If they survive the first week, they have a good shot. I have stripped the females before, but it is a pain to catch them, and I just don't have the time or patience to hunt down a holding fish of 10 to fifteen minutes! You will have a self sustaining colony if you just leave them alone.

 

Out of 5 breeding colonies, I have only seen a few fry get killed. Not eaten, just killed. Stripping will yield the most fry. Letting the females brood and release is the most rewarding.

 

Yeap.....they will eat em. I imagine they must think them little guys look like food. I watched it happen a couple of times. when I moved the rocks around to try to catch one that had been holding for a couple of weeks, she must have spit them out, and when the rock wasn't there to hide, the fry darted around, and all the adult tropheus chased it down untill one of em got it. I saw the poor thing half way in its mouth, it took it a minute or soo to get em down tho. after, that tropheus had a big poop!

Another time, I thought the fry were ready to go into the tank after a week or so of being stripped. These were full grown fry. One fry must have thought my dubosi was it mother.......it went right to the mouth, at first the dubosi wasn't even trying to eat em, but the knuckle had fry stayed right by the mouth, so finally he decided to open its mouth, and the fry swam in. after that, I had to rescue the rest of them out of the tank.

 

I've also seen It where for some reason, my fry were getting stuck in my filter intake.

 

I have so many instances of holding females but such a relatively small number of fry survive to grown on and either join the colony or be removed (by me) that I have to think there is a fair amount of fry-eating going on. While I haven't actually seen one get eaten I did witness a mother take her fry back in a hurry when the other fish caught on that there were babies on the loose and started swarming... I only have the one colony, but it is an unsexed (ie: male-heavy) colony - not sure if that has something to do with it.