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Here's some more photos of the fry as promised.
Two photos below show two different fry.
Fry hatched approx Jan 19th.
Photos taken Sunday Jan 30th which makes them about 11days old .
They measure 1.25cm.
Have started feeding them with frozen baby brine shrimp, microworm and various powdered foods.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v307/ ... D7-55d.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v307/ ... D7-41d.jpg

Regards,
Des.

Quality man, quality! Good selection of food there, how's are they eating? (please dont say with thier mouths )

Gorgeous

Excellent Des, They seem to be coming aloing just fine.

Have you decided where you're going to build a fishroom yet!!!

Triffic Des, they seem to be coming along in leaps and bounds. I'm surprised at how big they've got already.

Thanks all for your comments.

Dr P, I think they seem to prefer the baby brine shrimp (frozen) . The microworm must be good for them , but seems to be wriggling in the water than settling on the bottom.

Rob,
I already have a fishroom ...................in my dining room where i have 7 tanks and one in the front room !!!!!!!!!!

Regards,
Des.

Only seven tanks and your zebras are spawning? Time to set up some more ;~)

I already have a fishroom ...................in my dining room where i have 7 tanks and one in the front room !!!!!!!!!!

Seven........I think you should have a word with my wife!!!!! Just today, after 1 year of designing and planning, I have finally plugged in the pump for my 3 teir breeding tanks in my fishroom. I'm sure I could fit another four int here!!

Hi,

The same pair that had bred last time bred again 5 weeks later. The female was only holed in the cave for 2 days this time. Decided to remove the eggs/fry this morning . I looked into the tank and found a clump of 16 empty egg sacs/shells.Thought that they had hatched and the male had chucked the eggshells out so removed the cave , opened the back and found no fry !!!!!.What a disappointment. Did the male suck out the fry and eat them? Did the fry hatch and he or the other zebras ( I had 3 males and 5 females in this setup) ate them?. What a disappointment.
What is interesting is that another female is trapped by another male in another cave in the same tank. Will wait for the outcome of this pairing and then will try and have only 1 male to 2 females in each breeding tank as one has better control of whats going on.
Although there were no fry for all their efforts, knowing that the female could lay 16 eggs was good to know.

Regards,
Des.

Hi,

After closer examination of the eggs late last night, found that a few were just "shells", but the majority were whole but totally clear.
It looks as if they were infertile.Cannot be 100% sure that the same female was involved as last time so will try and reduce the numbers in each breeding tank so I can track things a little bit better.

Des.

Des wrote:Hi,
I looked into the tank and found a clump of 16 empty egg sacs/shells.Thought that they had hatched and the male had chucked the eggshells out so removed the cave , opened the back and found no fry !!!!!

That's really strange... if the male had eaten the eggs, surely he would have eaten the egg shells as well? Normally he eats the egg shell while helping the fry hatch.

I'm not helping here am I sorry about that..

Any other fish in the tank?

McEve,
Thats what I thought too.
I think your reply crossed my last post yesterday 8.22pm where I clarified the situation regarding the eggs.
Obviously being a good DAD, the male chucked this spawn out of the cave knowing they were infertile !!!!!!
Des.

AND THE GOOD NEWS( after the bad news of loosing a large male yesterday after a fight a couple of days ago) IS THAT I HAVE ANOTHER BATCH OF FRY.
I knew a few days ago that the male that had bred before was probably looking after another batch of eggs as he refused to come out of the cave. A couple of days ago managed to see by torchlight very briefly, that there was at least a couple of wrigglers.
Half an hour ago, found that the male had briefly left the cave , so using torch light, to my amazement quickly counted at least 13 youngsters at the back of the cave, before the male decided to quickly return to his brood. Since he returned to his cave , I have left the youngsters with their Dad.
I attribute the higher number of youngsters this time around to using much more RO water then the last time around.

Regards,
Des.

Superb man!! Thats a big spawn!!!

Congrats! That's wonderful news! Are you going to leave them with the dad until they come out of the cave by themselves?