hey guys i need some help plz, iv recently returned from a 1 month holiday and have found that 1 of my electric yellows is holding babies in its mouth, i am not sure how long its been holding for and would like to know if i should strip her or leave her to spit this is the first time this has happened to me so any help would be much apreciated, also its been acting weird since i have put her in the breeding trap she swims normal but when stationary she sits vertically (head up tail down) and there is a blue zebra protecting the trap it chases away any approaching fish and stays close to the trap but once in awhile tries to bite through at the electric yellow. any ideas what this could mean??

well zebras are pretty agressive in general,i had heaps of problems with thier agression thats exactly why not keeping then anymore. What i would reccoment to do is put your electric yellow into different tank where she doesnt get bullied. or an empty one if you want to keep the babies. she will spit them out in her own time into the empty tank. If you will levae her with zebra she mite ( im not saying she will) get killed,so I personally wouldnt risk.

What i would do is put her into an empty tank,if in about a week she doesnt spit the babies out ,i would strip her.Altho im not sure whats the earliest it is safe for the babies to strip the fish.. :roll: thats why i sed id give it a week so incase she JUSt started holding . THey will prolly come out still as partly an egg..but i saw people do that ... yea.. hope that helps.

does the empty tank need to be decorated or just have water in it. and when the babies are out do i leave the mother in the same tank or put her back in the other tank just worried if i put her back in the zebra will attack her, thanks alot for your help anna_&_chris at least now i have some thing to go on

i always put holding females in a smaller "un-decorated" tank as its easy to catch them. I strip at around 17 days after spawning, the fry are free swimming then. if i did not know when they spawned i would simply open her mouth with a tooth pick (point broken off) & have a look. if they still ahve yoke sacks try again in a few days. Its not really too hard to do, some fish are easier than others, my yellows are really easy. Red zebs alot harder to do.

here's a link to a stripping video

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/videos.php

Hi. I haven't reared Yellows but I have done Cobalt Zebras and Peacocks. What I do is......remove the female to her own tank, bare bottom but with a couple of lumps of coral rock to give the fry hideaways and a flowerpot cave to make the female feel secure. I leave her in the tank for a week or two after she has released the fry to get some condition back on her. Then I take all the rocks etc out of the main tank, return her to the tank and re-landscape. If you return her without re-decorating she may get killed due to the other fish defending their territories. Having new cave formations makes them re-establish territories and the 'new' addition will find her place.

DECORATING THE TANK OR NOT DECORATING IS TOTALLY UP TO YOU if you want you can. i decorated my fry tank only coz i dont have a spare room for tanks and they are around the house so everyone always looks at them and i want them to look nice 8) but yea it is harder to catch the fry you wil have to get everything out and blah blah blah.. but its up to you. WHen i had zebras it didnt realy matter if i changed the rock work befire i put fish in ,if there was a fish that my zebras didnt like they would attack no matter what.. but its always worth a try. And yea its better to leave her in the tank for a while feed her up give some rest.. in that case yea put something in thet ank that lil fry fish can hide in just in case...

excellent thanks heaps guys , im gonna leave her for a few more days then im gonna check on the babies just to make sure. thanks for the link smidey that really helped out much appreciate it