Kribensis Babies !

[chrismassey]

I'm very excited as my kribensis pair have bred and now I have babies. Do I have to try and remove them from the tank ? They are sticking very close to mom and dad...never had babies before :)

[AngelMom]

Congrats! Hopefully someone who knows for sure will come along, but my understanding is that you need to leave them all together ... mom & dad will take care of them. :)

[oscarbartoni]

Most cichlid parents are good parents. I have a pair of fireemouth with theire school of two week old fry in my 55 galoon tank. The fry are all over the tank but at night they will nest down with the parents. Right now they are too big to be eaten by any of the other fish in the tank or if there might be any that would try the parents will send them swimming out of the way. I have had young pairs of convicts (2 inchees long) spawn in a tank with 6 inch piranhas and have the 6 inch piranhas cowering at the other end of the tank. I have a mortor and pestal and crush up a mixture of different foods into small sizes for the fry. That plus the brine shrimp. I would worry aout the other fish being beat up by the krib parents.

[chrismassey]

i'm glad you said that...cos they're hanging out real close with mom and dad. And they are seeing off everyone who comes within 12 inches of them ! It's great !

[chrismassey]

Looks like most of the babies are still around. I really don't need another 20 fish in my tank - when is it ok to remove them ?

[oscarbartoni]

I would wait until they look like fish at about a month or so. If you wanted to you could move them sooner but that would mean that you would have more work instead of the parents. Also if you raise baby cichlids without their parents there is the posibility that future parents may not know how to be parents. Angelfish are a good example of that, so many people want to raise as many as they can and therefor take the eggs from the parents. The babies do not know what is what on parenting.

[bingo king]

my krib babies were good when i had a fake plant lying across the top of the tank...when i took it out after about a month and make the babies go...they still have to hide...the mom AND dad both chase them...and they dont seem to be playing...so i'd keep an eye out

[oscarbartoni]

Often when cichlid parents want to start a new family they will "kick the babies out of the nest" I wuld keep an eye on the parents so that they do not start thinking of their babies as a threat to a new family.

[chrismassey]

RIght now the parents seem to just fight with each other....ho-hum...reminds me of home :)