Leaving fry with parents??.,

Discussion in 'Cichlids' started by Cheetah, Nov 27, 2012.

  1. Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    A question came up (on another forum) which made me think...... In breeding cichlids (of any kind - esp Angels) I have always removed the fry for seperate hatching and rearing .....

    In my opinion..... it induces the parents to spawn again directly after removing the wrigglers/eggs and it reduces the potential of the fry being eaten (if) the parents get a scare or decides to do so......

    What is advisable and how would you do it.... leave the fry to be parent reared..... or remove them??....
     
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  3. brent

    brent

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    Good question. My Krib fry have been with the parents for almost 4 weeks now. Been wondering if I should seperate them or not. Will be interesting to hear some pros and cons
     
  4. OP
    Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    I firmly believe that if you remove them for seperate rearing..... the parents will breed again within a week of removal...... hence my purpose of this thread......
     
  5. brent

    brent

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    I have heard that some of the malawi fry that were stripped from the female and not reared by the parents lose their parenting instinct over a generation or two, heard something similar about discus as well. For us its a real pleasure to observe the parents and their fry interacting, as well as being very educational for our own fry :) The parents will definitely breed again much quicker if the fry are removed, but this is not my aim, so maybe missing the purpose of the thread. Now if my aim was to breed for profit that would be another matter entirely :)
     
  6. OP
    Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    So... in essence you agree Brent..... for bulk production..... it would be better to remove the fry/eggs..... it is cute to see the parents going through the rituals..... but if you are in a production mode..... you will get more value per capita if you remove.....
     
  7. Reedfish

    Reedfish Moderator

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    When I bred Angels and Kribs, I used to leave the youngsters with the parents for as long as possible. When the youngsters strayed far from the parents, that was when I removed them.

    I wasn't doing it for the money, so didn't want a high turnover, and also, thought the parents could do a better job than I could.
     
  8. brent

    brent

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    Definitely agree. higher yield per brood and more broods. Thats the way its done on a fish farm I visited recently where they breed malawis amongst other species.
     
  9. Marco

    Marco Retired Moderator

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    Hi @Cheetah

    You are of course right that if cost vs turnover is the issue, removing the fry will provide you with much greater numbers and thus higher profit margins. Theoretically. . .

    I have raised most fish I have been lucky enough to breed applying both mentioned methods. I have only really bred a handfull of species in my time in the hobby, but I have noticed one thing which I would like to share. This is not based on fact, only observation.

    The problem with Artificial rearing, apart from the fry not learning brood care from the parents, is the bypass of natural selection.
    Its true that most often parent raised broods are much smaller than artificially raised broods, but in my experience it has to do with natural culling.
    I have found parent raised broods to be more vigorous, stronger and in general less problematic in the long term.
    Combining this result with smaller broods has led me to the conclusion that parents are far more likely to cull weak specimens than we are. Nature, unlike humans have zero tolerance for weakness, and whither by parent culling or natural death due to weakness, in parent raised groups I find the survivors to be much stronger than artificially raised fry. I guess it boils down to a percentage vs numbers game. I also believe that this has contributed to weak genes in fish we buy, ending up in us branding certain species as weak, where the actual cause is that their specimen gene should have died out some generations ago.
    Nature has a way of dealing with weakness which we basically bypass by rearing as much fry as possible. Even albinism gets rectified by nature within a few generations, if not the very next.

    That said, I also believe there is a place and time for artificial rearing - as long as it is done to promote the species, not nescessarily the pocket. But thats just my take on it

    Rgds

    Marco
     
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  10. OP
    Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    Well said @Marco..... and it makes sense..... Better quality fry stems from parental rearing..... True....
     
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  11. Wickets

    Wickets Scalare

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    I remove the eggs from the parents, as soon as they are laid. (Angels). Sometimes, I miss a batch, but the parents still look after them, so to me it seems that Angels do not lose their parenting instincts, like widely published. Like with humans, you get good parents, and specimens that should never be allowed to breed.
     
  12. Ryno

    Ryno Kenaal baber

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  13. HennieRoux

    HennieRoux

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    Hi @Cheetah I am with @Marco on this....I have always been against removing fry from parents, and as @Marco knows, we had a dissagreement about that when I joined TASA. But, said this, I do understand why it is done, and a couple of years ago I had the amazing experience of taking a tour through a tropical fish farm near Mtunzini where I stayed, called Fish desighns. This is a bussiness and just like any other business, it needs to be profitable, and the best way of doing this, was removing the fry from the parents, this means that the pair spawned every 7-10 days, and I am taliking about angels in particular. If they where left with the parents, they will only spawn once a month +-, depends on when you remove the fry.

    But we all do this for different reasons, and we need to respect those reasons....my reason would be to see those fry swim around with the parents, and see the interaction between them, and hopefully in return, the fry will do just that again to their fry when they breed, and so we can keep that good behaviour with some of our populations.

    Also as @Marco mentioned, culling is important, to maintain and keep only the best of the best, as there is no predators in our tanks when breeding, so that ugly culling task is left with us, I personaly hate culling, but as a breeder, its something I have to live with.

    So in the end @Cheetah if its for profit reasons, then go ahead and remove the eggs or fry asap for more spawns and more profits.
     
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  14. timothy m

    timothy m

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    there is just something about watching parents with their fry.its one of the most amazing sights you would ever get to witness.
     
  15. mattie

    mattie

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    I can also vouch for that.
     
  16. Wickets

    Wickets Scalare

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    @Cheetah. Have you timed your Angels? I have checked mine out of curiosity with the following results:
    Black Angels - They will lay exactly 12 days after egg removal, like clockwork.
    Koi and Half Blacks - 12 to 14 days
    Marble lace - 15 to 17 days after removal.
    The Blacks are the oldest pair, and the marble lace the youngest. Do you think age makes any difference?
     
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  17. OP
    Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    Personally..... I think that it depends on the personality and disposition of each individual pair and not the specific type of angel being checked..... as much as we humans are different from each other..... fish also have... (and apply) their own personality ..... conditioning also takes place at varying rates.... even if they are all fed the same diets..... one pair may be ready before the others..... I have Generally found exactly one week after the previous spawn..... they will spawn again if the fry is removed.....
     
  18. Wickets

    Wickets Scalare

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    @ Cheetah. Thanks. BTW, haven't you relocated? I see your location is still Amandelbult.
     
  19. OP
    Cheetah

    Cheetah Retired moderator

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    O ja!.... I must still get to that..... Feels like have less time on the net now since I retired..... had plenty time when I was still working.....
     
  20. Boomslang

    Boomslang

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    I find that the problem with mouthbrooders (only have experience with Malawis) is that the females lose a lot of conditioning when carrying fry. Just yesterday I stripped two Saulosi females for no other reason than I was worried that they were taking their parenting too seriously and just getting too thin. When water parameters are right the males will start to harass the females the minute that they have spat and the females simply dont have time to recover and improve their conditioning sufficiently.

    Point of my post- I am going to try and take a middle of the road approach- strip the fry when they are wrigglers and just free swimming. This means that they hatch with the parent and dont need to be tumbled but that they are removed before the parent loses too much conditioning. Ideally I guess it would be nice to start a small 'recovery tank' for the females after they have been stripped/ spat too.
     
  21. Boomslang

    Boomslang

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    Flip- only saw now that this was posted under South and Central American Cichlids. My bad!
     

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