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hey,

I'v just discovered my first ever spawn! so I'm over the moon as many of you can imagine.

As it is both the Female's and Alpha Males 1st spawn they could very well be infertile; however i was more surprised about where I discovered the little clutch. I first thought it was a build up of old food between the bottom of the tank and the underside of a piece of slate which is located right next to the males cave. I was about to clean it out until I realised after a closer look it was a small clutch of eggs (10approx). I had noticed the female around the male's cave in the last few days.

If the eggs were in with the Male i would leave well alone and allow the male to care for the eggs but as this was not the case i have decided to move them into a small net at the top of the aquarium with good water flow to give them at least a chance of hatching if the unlikely was to happen.

I was just wondering if anyone had ever encountered this before or if anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it.

New dads sometimes screw up and accidentally "blow" the eggs out. Also, sometimes caves have a downward slant from back to front which would also "encourage" the eggs to slide out. You cant do anything about an inexperienced dad, but you can make sure that the cave tilts down towards the back end which will help dad keep the eggs in the cave.