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It is very common practice to strip daddy of his eggs or fry and put them in a tumbler - especially for L046. But how many of you do NOT do this? How many of you leave the eggs and fry with daddy and let him raise them?

I've tried to let the males raise fry naturally for as long as I've owned fish. It's so much more satisfying watching them do things naturally in the aquarium. I *do* move the daddy (in his cave) to a separate tank so the big fish in the normal tank don't eat the fry as they emerge from the cave. But I leave him with the eggs and fry, and let them do their thing. And I can't say success has been scarce! I've got baby plecos coming out of my ears because there are just so many! So it's clearly working!

If you do use a tumbler, why? What do you want to gain from using the tumbler that you can't get from letting males raise the fry naturally?

I normally strip all fry (not eggs, except with butterflies) from dads but my experience with L397 says they'll still survive with dad at remarkably high rates.

Cheers, Eric

I also would rather have the males do all the work. I'll usually give a new L# or male a few tries at raising fry without getting involved. If things don't work out I'll start pulling the fry or eggs depending on how far along the male keeps up his end.

It also depends on the tank and the fish. If the aqua scape makes it difficult to recover fry once out of the cave, I'll grab them just to make things easier. Also if I am overrun with fry of a specific L# and they are not one of the more dependable "fatherly figures", I'll leave them be to see if they can learn.

I usually leave them until most of the egg sack is gone, then move them to a breeder box. Some scenarios where people may want to remove eggs or fry could be if there's other fish in the tank that would eat the fry, or maybe to increase the number of spawns when there's 1 breeding male in the group and females are ready to spawn.

If you keep L46 in a special (important) tank and you have no commercial objectives, it is best to let the whole process run its course. Maybe in time you will have a few less clutches and the weakest little ones will die off but you will be rewarded with a beautiful spectacle.

Ltygress wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 13:36 It is very common practice to strip daddy of his eggs or fry and put them in a tumbler - especially for L046. But how many of you do NOT do this? How many of you leave the eggs and fry with daddy and let him raise them?

I've tried to let the males raise fry naturally for as long as I've owned fish. It's so much more satisfying watching them do things naturally in the aquarium. I *do* move the daddy (in his cave) to a separate tank so the big fish in the normal tank don't eat the fry as they emerge from the cave. But I leave him with the eggs and fry, and let them do their thing. And I can't say success has been scarce! I've got baby plecos coming out of my ears because there are just so many! So it's clearly working!

If you do use a tumbler, why? What do you want to gain from using the tumbler that you can't get from letting males raise the fry naturally?

Of course no one could match the parental care of the fish, but in some cases you might want to consider manually incubating the eggs. For example a) if there might be a chance of predation b) inexperienced male c) if the male keeps getting spawn after spawn he'll get worn out and have no time to recover

The last point is what I consider the most critical, but I think the majority of people tumble the eggs to maximize the hatch rate and to keep an eye on the egg/fry development.

I have no issues with dad raising fish from spawning to free swimming. When I began with spawning zebras in 2006 I had two males that did all the spawning and an uncertain number of females involved. The two males spawned about every 30 days. However, the spawns were about two weeks apart for the two males. So the effect was I had a spawn every two weeks. Females are able to produce eggs at about two week intervals.

I always leave fry in breeding tanks. For one I work with groups and removing things from my tanks the way I arrange them is a real chore. I also believe the fry grow faster that way.

Basically, if one one wants the maximum out put from zebras I would think reverse trios would be the better way to go rather than pairs.

Here is the other thing I have noticed. When I need to pull fry or work to produce a proven reverse trio. It interrupts active spawning and sometimes after catching and moving a pair, they will stop spawning for some time. I can catch a potential spawning pair when they are both in the cave but before she deposits eggs. Once she does that she becomes excess baggage and will pretty quickly be out of the cave. It takes amazing good luck to catch the pair still both in the cave with the eggs.

Finally, my goal is to produce healthy offspring. One can work with pairs, reverse trios or groups. I have always opted for the latter. My reasoning is simple here. Nature has evolved reproduction in species so it leans towards creating the "strongest offspring." This means engineering things such that the best genes are most likely to be combined.

This is not a failsafe method but one that tends naturally to promote the best qualities in any species. I believe that allowing the fish to choose with whom they spawn on a group setting will be most likely to give me the best results in terms of quality but not in terms of quantity. I believe the fish can choose their with whom they will spawn much more effectively than I can.

Finally, I am a hobby breeder. My primary motivation is not maximum fry production. I have neither the space, nor the help to be doing this. As always, this is just my experience for whatever it may be worth.

One last comment on group spawning. Sooner or later one of the active spawners may be lost. In a group setting another fish should naturally "step up" to replace the lost one. I have had this happen a number of times over the years.