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I have a colony of 8 zebras. two males, 4 females, and 2 young adults. In this colony only the alpha male spawn. I usually remove the eggs after 6 days when they hatch. This particular male don't seem to take care of the spawn after they hatch and therefore I remove the fry. What I have noticed is that 1 of the females have eggs/fry that don't develop properly. Can this be a genetic problem/mismatch between the male and female.

With this particular female she lays around 6 to 7 eggs and the eggs develop into fry but the majority of the fry die after 1 or 2 days from hatching and I'm left with 1 or 2 surviving fry. What is interesting is these particular fry do not stay together after hatching like the others, they scatter. Other females who spawn with this male have successful spawns. I go through the same routine and the fry stay together after hatching and none ever dies with these other females in the group. Hope this makes some since.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone seen this happen?

Thanks

Ken

Interesting. I haven't entered the spawn with 11 fry to the stats, as they behave like you describe, and I'm not at all so sure they will make it.

They don't stay together huddled under the same hiding place, but are all over the tank, don't hide, and don't develop as they should, and as the other spawn of 8 does.

I keep a close eye on them to try and figure out what's happening, but really have no idea. I've never seen fry behave like this before. They are free swimmin since 3 weeks, so they must feed, but there's something out of whack there for sure, I just don't know what.

The male in this tank is guarding eggs again, so I'll soon find out if this batch behave the same way. If they don't then it can't be, as my theory was until now, something in the tank that causes it

My issue is solved. I moved the fry to a different tank, and within hours they perked up. I'm away too much, the tank actually had a cycle going