new to cichlids- rivulatus have just spawned

[Kitah]

G'day guys

I am very new to keeping cichlids. I have a 6x2x2 with two oscars, two white saum males one gold saum male and recently discovered a gold saum female... All fish are quite small, the rivulatus are approx 7-10cm in size at a guess. I purchased the two whites last saturday, and very soon after adding them to the tank the bigger male immediately started following one of the gold saums around. Neither are overly aggressive towards the other fish- everyone pretty well leaves everyone else alone.

The white saum male and the gold saum female have obviously spawned today, and the female is guarding a stack of eggs which they've stuck to a piece of gold vine driftwood in one corner of the tank. The male is actually leaving everyone alone, even if they swim near the eggs, and the female will only chase the others very briefly if they get within 10cm of the eggs.

Now I know this is a bad combo... I wouldn't half mind being able to raise the fry, and I have a 2ft tank I could raise them in, if the eggs are viable. But I do have a few questions

- if the parents are leaving the other fish alone now, is this likely to continue or are they likely to become more aggressive if/when the eggs hatch?

- how long until the fry are free-swimming?

- how early can the fry be moved into an established/cycled tank?

and yes I am planning on rehoming the girl now

Thanks,

Laura

mum and dad in the middle

Edited October 26, 2013 by Kitah

[Lictoga]

Just leave the fry as feeders for the oscars

[Kitah]

Actually after looking into it, the eggs may not be there in the morning anyway. There are two plecos approx 10-15cm length in there. Will wait and see what its like tomorrow. If the eggs hatched I would be interested in trying to keep the little guys alive though.

[99AWD]

Any news on these eggs/fry?

[goneself]

Lets hope theyve been knocked off. Too many of these white/golds floating around...is it really that hard to breed for quality?

[Kitah]

Did you not read properly? All I asked were a few simple questions. Ive never kept american cichlids before and wasn't sure i even had a female in there. I only wanted four males. If I had been planning on breeding, yes I would have bred to colour type. E.g. i keep pythoms and will breed only pure locality animals.

Thanks so much for our AWESOME help. Gotta love forums.

[goneself]

You're welcome

I can read properly, yes. Keeping male and female fish together..what exactly did you think would happen?

[Kitah]

Considering I said I'm new to cichlids and the fish aren't yet adults I wasn't even sure if I had a female- as I said I had been hoping they were all males.

Forums are full of such helpful nice people (sarcasm, if you didn't notice).

I am far from an idiot so I would appreciate it if you didn't behave as though I was.

[goneself]

Well, I'd appreciate world peace, but thats unlikely too.

[Flanagan001]

How did this end up?

After 3 days the tails will poke through the eggs and they start to wriggle. That's a good time to move them into another tank if you are separating them. Or, you can let nature take its course and see what happens. The fry live off there yolk sac for the next three days. Then there free swimmers. Usually rivulatus make great parents and will protect them into they're big enough to protect themselves.

[Kitah]

The bubs are all doing very well, I'm guessing there are about 200. Turns out there was also another female in the display tank, I ended up with more eggs from a different pair, which I didn't bother to keep. Both females are out in a different setup now, just males in the display. The babies are in yet another, bare bottom tank by themselves.

I am keen to maybe breed either whites or golds (not sure which) down the track, but not any time soon. Need a few new tanks, and a chiller etc for my axolotl tank first.

thanks