# My Kribensis Have FRY!!!!



## furbycow (Aug 27, 2006)

When I turned on the light to feed my Kribensis today, I noticed around 20-30 fry swimming around the tank with the parents. What should I do now? Leave them in there or take them out and put them in another tank? I'm afraid to try to squirt some food like live microworms or daphnia in there with a turkey baster in case I stress out the parents and they eat the fry. They are all swimming around pecking at the gravel now, but I did see the mommy eat one of them right when I turned on the light. Please help me! 

The tank just has the 2 Kribensis in it. It has a UG filter.


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## Jgray152 (Jan 16, 2007)

Put them in another tank asap. They will get eaten. YOUR A FATHER! or.... are you a mother?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Kribs are fairly prolific spawners, and pretty good parents once they get the hang of it. However, it often takes them a few tries to GET the hang of it, and until then they do tend to eat the fry if you spook them.

This means that you could try to rescue the fry you have, if you think you can raise them without their parents, but if you do you'll likely spook the parents and they might not spawn again anytime soon. Otherwise you could leave them together and either wind up with a surviving batch or an eaten one rapidly followed by another batch or 2 until they eventually stop eating them.

Of course, being cichlids, there is a lot of room for individuality. This means that maybe they'll spawn soon after you remove the fry anyway. It happens. This could quickly put you up to your ears in Krib fry in 2 tanks.

heh, heh... in short, you just can't win. 
On the other hand, you just can''t lose, either, so don't agonize over it too much.

Me?
I would go ahead and scoop up the fry if I was really interested in raising some fry. Fry you already have are better than fry you may get later. However, it's a lot of fun to watch the parents and the fry together for a few weeks, so I'd be missing out on that.


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## Murray (Jan 15, 2007)

furbycow said:


> The tank just has the 2 Kribensis in it. It has a UG filter.


is the undergravel filter connected to a powerhead or just a air pump and hose, and also how much depth is there in gravel, just curious cause im about to install one and u have one with successful fry so i want to be sure i get the same results, thanks mang, congrats with the fry btw, i think i may have osme here too.


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## furbycow (Aug 27, 2006)

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Unfortunately, it'll be another few days before I can move the fry to another tank because I'll need to set it up for fry. They seem to be doing fine with the parents. I saw the daddy eat another one and then spit it back out near the others. Maybe they're herding them or something? Collecting the ones that stray away from the school?

I've fed them some microworms and they love em! After just squirting in some once with a dropper, all their stomachs were huge. How do I know when I've fed them enough or too much? I don't want them to explode...:razz: 

Murray, the undergravel filter I have is made up of two plastic plates underneath the gravel that leads up into the two pipes with the airstones. I just have an air pump hooked up to the two airstones. I'd say the gravel in my tank is generally around 2 inches deep. However, the Kribensis like to remodel the tank and they've taken gravel from inside their cave and piled it near the cave. So it may not be as deep inside the cave but since the gravel isn't too big, the fry can't get sucked up into the filter. I've used bigger gravel before and the fry got into the filter which is why I switched to a smaller size of around 1/2 cm or less.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.


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## Sable (Nov 6, 2006)

Kribs do tend to scoop their fry into their mouths and bring them to a "safe" part of the tank, then spit them out. It's a little nerve-wracking to watch at first, but it's normal behavior.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2007)

dont move em to their onw tank for a few weeks. These fish take care of there fry. they are to small to eat daphina at first.


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## furbycow (Aug 27, 2006)

Ahhh! Now the parents are fighting. They are both looking just a little ragged on their tail and dorsal fins, but I think it's mostly the mommy beating up the daddy. Should I remove the dad, the mum, or the babies?


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## Murray (Jan 15, 2007)

i wouldnt, i just had fry too and i notice a bitt of aggressiveness but i believe this is natural. kribs do some crazy things.


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## awesome kid (Jun 10, 2005)

Mine kribs behave almost exactly like yours do. When the parents were fighting I removed the female, because she wasn't caring for the fry like the father was. The fry were doing fine... until they got eaten by a couple of tetras I forgot to take out  Anyway, they spawned again later, but ate the fry. I'm waiting on another spawn in a couple of weeks, so we'll see what happens!


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