I have a female holding fry, this is my first experience so I have got alot of different info. I am turning to you guys for more help. I am going to seperate her so she will be safe, the rest I need help with. The questions I have - how long will she hold the fry before releasing, or is it mandatory to strip her. ould you also send me any info that I need.

Well, first of all congrats on your first batch of fry. I am sure it will be the first of many.

Now, it was good to separate the female (not always necessary, but I will talk about this later). There is no reason to strip her. She will do just fine by herself. It will take her 4-5 weeks and then she will spit them out. She will then let them come in and out of her mouth for about another week and then they will be on their own. During the 4-5 weeks that she is holding, she will not eat. Towards the end of the holding period (the last week) she may sneak some bites of flakes. People theorize that she is actually eating at this point to feed the babies. Before this, though, she will not eat. Therefore, you do not need to feed her as she will not be eating it and it will just be polluting the water. During the 4th or 5th week you can add a couple of flakes and see if she will eat it. If not then remove the flakes.

Once she has spit them out, she will be very skinny. Keep her in the tank and eating for a week or so and let her build back her strength before putting her back in the main tank. For the fry, I feed live brine shrimp for the first two weeks. You can buy brine shrimp hatcheries from your local fish store (very easy to hatch them) and the fry will eat them up and grow like crazy. After a couple of weeks, they should be ready to eat small flakes. Put some flakes in a ziploc bag and crush them up. Make the flakes progressively bigger as they grow.

Now, in terms of separating the female - this is not always required. I used to always separate my females, but now I only do it in certain instances. You generally will have less fry survive if you keep the mother in the main tank, but you will have a lot live. Plus it is fun to one day wake up and see little fry hiding in the rocks and poking their head out to eat. I have let the last five of my females spit out in the tank and I have a million babies running around the tank. I thought it would be hard for them to get food, but if you crush up flakes and put them in the tank, the big guys will leave it alone and the fry will run out and grab it. They will be fine. You do need a lot of rock work for them to hide though. They especially like flat rocks on the bottom that they can live under.

Now, back to the certain times I do separate the female. Somtimes a female can not help but keep getting pregnant. I have a red zebra and yellow lab with this problem. So, they don't eat for five weeks and then two weeks later get pregnant again. I think you can see how this would lead to starvation. If I see a fish with this problem, I will separate her to keep her from holding so I can build up her strength before putting her back into the main tank.

Anyways, good luck. Cichlids in general breed like rabbits so you should be on your way to a billion fry. What kind of cichlid do you have that is holding?

I sell them to my local fish store. She gives me store credit for them as cichlids are very popular right now so store owners are more than happy to take them. I also sell some of them myself. You usually do not have a problem getting them sold off.

Hey,

I have a yellow lab holding fry right now and she's pretty close to releasing.
I've taken her out of my larger take and have in a 10 gal with some other fry that are about a month old.

Will the other fry be a problem?
Will she not release hers, or will she eat the others once she releases?

Thank you