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I have 3 adult Petricola in a 12 gal on their own. Two are definately female and full of eggs. I've now read that Petri's are egg scatterers not cuckoo layers so how could I give them the best chance of breeding? Do they eat their own eggs or fry?

The best way is to get a few more; males!

they're groupspawners and the presence of rivalry definitely boosts things. a single male often gets lazy, but the presence of another male speeds up things.
a group of 3:2 (M;F) breeds well, bigger groups do too.

another trick is to separate the sexes for a few weeks and do some massive waterchanges with slightly cooler water just before joining them in 1 tank. this way you can also breed with just 1 male.

conditioning the water with guppies (think pheromones!) helps, but is not needed.

be ready with marble traps! a small glass bowl with marbles in it and a terracotta cave on top works perfect as a spawning cave. you need to empty those marble traps every single day (!), the eggs are sensitive to bacterial growth and fungus.

the marbles (or similar tricks with eggcrate or mesh) is needed because, yes, they eat their own eggs and fry.

Thanks so much for all that info. So if they eat their own eggs and fry how do they survive?

I have another 8 Petricola in my Malawi tank. They are a fair bit smaller than the 3 adults. If you were me would you put them all into the same tank? I have no idea of sexes of the 8 F1's.

you can keep them in one huge shoal; they'll be fine. be aware that the larger will bully the smaller ones, but it's harmless.

but to breed them you need a special tank. petricola fry are the size of cyclops (really minute) the eggs are the size of sandgrains.....unlike cichlids that "breed all by themselves" breeding Syno's takes a lot of work.

not that petricola's are difficult, it just takes a lot of work. the eggs need to be taken care of, the fry needs to be protected against other fish, the young grow incredably slow....it's a lot like breeding characins or killi's or so. totally different from breeding cichlids.

Thank you again. I did mean that I would put all the Petri's in one tank on their own, not with the Malawi. I will do a bit more research first though.

Some people are like slinkies,

They don't really have a purpose,

But they still bring a smile to your face

when you push them down the stairs

I like that one Sid Where did you come up with it

stole it from the admin from another forum.

I liked it as soon as I laid my eyes on it!
had a genuine 'WTF?' moment and pulled down my profile rightaway.

Sid's not a nice guy