Breeding Wild Kribs

[firefish]

My wild kribs bred a few weeks ago. There were about 50 eggs. Over 24hrs the eggs reduced to 15, so I took the cave away to raise them myself, 10 hatched and i'm now looking after 6 fry. A week later I returned the cave and they bred again, more eggs this time. After a couple of days the eggs fell to the ground, and then I saw them wriggling. Then they were all gone I think it was the same female both times.

Are krib eggs meant to fall to the ground? Is there anything I can do?

[Joshlikesfish]

Are they in a tank with other fish?

[Navarre]

Hi Firefish,

These guys are a lot slower than standard kribs.

Do youhave substrate on your tank bottom?

sometimes the krib wrigglers will survive in the substrae and as they get bigger will appear as a small cloud of free swimming fry.

ma and pa will try and defend them against other fish as best they can but they may be predated

hth

Nav

[firefish]

Yeah, there are other fish in the tank (black phantom tetras, sterbai cories, 2 red whiptails and a bn)

I've got a fine gravel substrate. The parents stopped defending the area almost a week ago. They would have been free swimming on the 25th.

[Joshlikesfish]

Try moving them to their own tank?

[firefish]

I only have 2 other tanks, one is a 25 litre hexagon so not suitable and the other is already a community tank. And unfortunatly I'm not in the position to get another tank.

[Joshlikesfish]

You could move the other fish into the other tank?

[firefish]

They're both too full already. I guess an option is to raise the eggs again myself. Or sell some of the fish

[Navarre]

when they are wrigglers you could transfer them into an icecream container floating in your main tank?

Maybe

[firefish]

Is that from when they are in the gravel? Or are they not meant to fall off the cave?

[ryanjury]

When they are hatched and wriggling is the best time to transfer them, but if you have no spare tanks what do you plan to grow the fry out in? I would probably leave them in the community tank and once they figure out how to be parents maybe some will survive.. Either that or buy another tank to transfer the pair or eggs/fry to and raise them up.

[firefish]

I had been hoping that the parents would do the raising. In the past floating containers have allowed me to raise gbas, cories and apistos.

[firefish]

They spawned again this time. I'll see how far they go this time

[Bilbo]

I have about 20 fry with one set of parents and 15 with another both around 2 weeks old. They ate their eggs for a while but the last few spawns I have just left them to it and they have been great parents.

[firefish]

Thats hopeful for this spawn then! The first spawn the dad did no guarding at all and that left mum swimming to the other side of the tank to ward off enemies.

There is quite a large gap between the gravel and the top of the cave, so i'm thinking of slightly reducing it today so that they have less of an area to defend.