Female Died. Will Male care for eggs/fry?

[PikeLee]

I got some bad news. My Viejita II Female died yesterday. :cry: I think from dropsy. The male still looks healthy.

4 days before she died, I believe she laid eggs. The reason why I think she laid eggs is because she was guarding her cave where she had previously spawned for just a few minutes at a time. She only did that a couple of times. The other times it looked like she was resting in the corner.

Now that she has died, I have an air stone near the cave to simulate the fanning. But my question is:

1. Will the eggs hatch?
2. Should I leave the male in the tank? He never really takes care of the fry or the eggs in previous spawns. I’m worried that he’ll eat the fry when the eggs hatch if I leave him in the tank.

Please let me know what you guys think since the eggs should hatch any day now. I would really like to save this batch since that was my only pair and there are no LFS that sell this apisto. Thanks a bunch.

 

[Neil]

PikeLee,

If your female laid 4 days ago, the eggs are already hatched(if they are going to). I have had male apistos take care of fry after the female dies, but they are far less efficient at dealing with wigglers than they are with free-swimmers. I would pull the cave and see what you have. If there are wigglers in there, artificially rear them.
Sorry about your loss. Hope you get something out of this possible spawning.
Neil

 

[PikeLee]

Neil,

Thanks for the quick reply. I had checked the cave before you replied, but the cave that I have for them is tough to see. It's a plastic peice of driftwood with a hole in it. The hole goes down pretty deep and there's a tiny opening ,so you can't really tell for sure if there are eggs. I was going more off the late mother's actions.

But by the time you had responded they should've hatched. Which they didn't.

I was really bummed about it, because these were my favorite set of apistos I had. Hopefully I'll get a better response from my other apistos (Eunotus & Trifasciatas).

My Eunotus has about 7 fry growing up nice, and the trifasciatas just ate thier 1st batch of eggs. Hopefully things will work out as I am anxious to get my first batch of apisto fry grown to juveniles. Wish me luck.

Take it easy and thanks again.

 

[Neil]

Sorry to hear about the viejita eggs. And it is not suprising that any first spawns of apistos are eaten. Sometimes they take a few tries to get the parental thing down.

Hopefully things will work out as I am anxious to get my first batch of apisto fry grown to juveniles.

Even though it is not a large spawn, the eunotus fry are enough to probably give you a new generation of parents in case you loose one of those too. That is the main thing.

Wish me luck.

Good luck!!!

Neil