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Would zebras eat mixed breed cichlid fry with egg sacks still attached to the fry? I don't want to raise the mixed breed and really don't want to euthanize them. Any thoughts?

I think they would

I suspect they would too - and a good food source it would be!

There are a great many other fish which would consume them too, depending on what you have.

I doubt H. zebra will eat very many of the fry and most will survive only to still need to be eliminated. I would think about a more efficient predator like a Dwarf Pike Cichlid. I prefer Crenicicla regani or C. notothalmus. These are both specialized predators of Apistogramma fry although they would not turn down any newly hatched Cichlid spp fry. I've kept Dwarf pikes with Discus and even adult Black Phantom Tetras without problems. Even these other fish would eat the newly hatched Cichlids. Most Dwarf Cichlids are aggressive amongst their own kind especially C. compressiceps.
Any Hypancistrus spp would never cross my mind as an effective fry garbage disposer.

Well I'll let you all know very shortly, I have a yellow lab holding and she usually produces around 30 to 40 eggs. I'll put them in the tumbler and wait till their wigglers which by the looks of the eggs wont be long.

why wait until they're wigglers? I imagine that they'd be much better food as eggs.

I'm much curious about this if they do prey on other plecos wrigglers in the wild as well too if they were given the chance to.

I would say they will definitely eat them. My Magnum plecs are the biggest fry bandits I have and they are meant to be veggies.

Matt

Just got done feeding them live baby yellow labs and they gobbled them right up! 3 days later found clutch of eggs in dominant males cave. Can't say for sure weather this contributed to their spawning but could have since it's been a while since they have spawned. I actually witnessed female dart from cover to pounce on one that was being washed in front of her by current. The rest were consumed from inside glass bowl with piece of slate on top and in total darkness. I am going to try this on my second tank of zeb's and see how they do. I have a tank of trash peacocks [mixed females with otter point jake] with 3 females holding and am going to try eggs and also very small fry with eggsac used up almost completely.
Would everyone agree it would be more nutritious to feed them the ones with the most eggsac intact?

No doubt about it. The newly hatched larvae are more nutritious than well developed larvae but I would say the difference is not much.
I may have to take up raising oscars. They produce a lot more eggs than mouth brooders.
It is possible that many of the smaller l-numbers predate the nests of larger species. They cannot resist exploring crevices and caves. I'm sure that behavior is all part of their normal search for food and that they are opportunistic egg eaters. Perhaps that is one way they come into breeding condition in the wild? Male Plecos are very choosy about finding a cave of a size they can effectively block.
There are knifefish with noses like anteater which look like they may have specialized in eating eggs deep inside small caves. They evolved long noses for some reason.

I've had bristlenose clear out a cave full of goo-obo gudgeon eggs (sadly), and I know a bunch of people who will give their plecos slates of angelfish eggs. Maybe this will be the new trend - keeping cichlids just for the eggs.

Anyone try salmon eggs?

I have used whitefish eggs for cichlids,P.typus and syno's but sparingly, as I thought they would be quite rich(that is the point though isn't it).
The only pleco type that I have fed them to were common bristlenose which were spawning at the time (of course)...but I am sure they would be good for my ancistrus ranunculus, I just did not do much fishing this past fall.

Salmon eggs would be good but quite large, I would think better for larger types.

Birger

you're right, they are pretty large eggs. I only ask because they're easy to come by in the fall for those of us fortunate enough to live near the Great Lakes. I suppose they could be incorporated into a gel food mixture, pehaps.

Well I tried it on my second tank and it didn't do anything as far as spawning was concerned but they did choose the eggs over bloodworms. I also tried fry in my main tank, The zeb's ate them but most of them got free and the zebras have been praying on them regularly for the past 4 nights.

sorry for resurrecting a zombie thread, but I was curious if anyone had any more thoughts on feeding salmon eggs to plecos? It's getting towards salmon season in the US and I'd rather feed my fish free eggs than expensive seafood, if possible.

My big concern is how liquid-y the eggs are after being "popped."

Fresh uncured Salmon eggs are rather juicy. I think as long as you begin trying them sparingly and can assess their waste factor you would be fine.

My big concern is how liquid-y the eggs are after being "popped."

Lately I have been using lake trout eggs mostly for some eels that I have, what I have been doing is freezing the batch of fresh eggs in small zip lock bags. When I need some I break off a small chunk and defrost them in hot tap water, what this does is solidify the eggs slightly (hard boiled) and does not seem to make a difference to the fish as they get eaten regardless.
I do not think this would alter the nutritional value much.

Birger

I've read somewhere that people do feed lobster eggs to their zebras as its one of big hits with zebras

you could try lobster eggs but i wouldn't

mangopleco wrote:you could try lobster eggs but i wouldn't

Any particular reason for that - I'm not trying to be "funny", but I have no idea why lobster eggs would NOT be good for plecos?? Above the nutritional side of it, there is the added advantage of them being a marine creature, which means it's unlikely any parasites will spread from the eggs to the pleco.

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Mats