Topic: ;DHappy Fish

[ace34]

I finally got a new 55 gallon tank for my Red Devil and Convicts. The convicts had fry that are about 1 1/2 weeks old. I left half of them in the old tank by themselves and put the other half in the new large tank. Two questions: What to feed the fry in the small tank?

The other question is now that the 2 parents are in the new tank, the male is still guarding the fry intensly and won't let the female anywhere near them. Is this normal or just one of those things  

[fnesr]

i usually just feed them pre processed liquid small fry food (wardley brand) until they reach a size big enough to eat finely crushed up pellets. some people feed baby shrimp and stuff like that, but ive done allright just with the liquid stuff, i think its egg based.

Ive seen the male take over the parenting role before. its hard to tell what will happen, its not an exact science. sometimes the mother will do all the caring and the male will ignore them, sometimes they both seem to care for them or the male takes over. there are alot of variables, sometimes the male will kill the female awhile after they have hatched and sometimes they will be fine together or sometimes the male will eat the fry for no aparent reason. so its hard to say whats normal and not normal behavior.  why did you choose to split the batch in half? i imagine the devil in your tank will end up eating the convict fry one way or another eventually.  

[ace34]

Well, I estimated there to be a couple hundred fry and I knew There was no way to raise that many. It's also interesting to watch the "parenting". What is strange is that the parents worked so close together in the small tank and as soon as I moved them, the male took over and will have nothing to do with the female. He keeps chasing her to the other end.