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My female is slowly eating her eggs. Is this because she knows they aren't fertile?

Cheers
TW

Normally cichlids will eat their eggs one by one if they see that something is wrong, like if they turn out to not be fertile or get attacked by a fungus. If you can see which eggs she eats, do they appear to be a different color from the rest? Nonfertile and damaged eggs become an opaque white color, while healthy eggs range from orange to brown to pink.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Hi sirboks,

I don't know when she started eating them, but yes, it did seem to be one by one & I only noticed it tonight. There might be one lone egg left now - not sure, but I assume she thinks they are all gone, as she totally abandoned the location. Eggs all appeared to be a pinky brown colour. They reminded me of the Spectrum pellets I tried to feed them - which so far, they haven't realised that I'm feeding them.

They are juvenile fish, so maybe they weren't fertile, but the colour was definitely not opaque white.

Oh well, she wasn't a very nice fish during her egg period, now maybe the male can come out of hiding. Bit worried about him, as he hasn't been seen since I got home from work about 7hrs ago.

Thanks for your info.



Cheers
TW

I don't remember, are they the only fish in this tank? Cichlids will also eat the eggs themselves if they feel their safety is threatened by other fish.

I hope your male is alright, keep us posted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Hi Theresa

Just the 2 of them plus 3 otos. The female didn't seem to care what the oto did & they were even allowed to nibble on the driftwood, under which she laid her eggs, but the male is not allowed to even swim around freely anywhere in the tank. In my other thread, I was asking about what would be good fish to go in the tank, but for the time being I'm going to leave it as it is, until I can get them to associate me with food - they can't compete with other fish for food at the moment. I've had them eating brine shrimp, but they haven't figured out the dry pellet thing yet - strange, as I was told they were tank bred, so I would have thought they would be used to taking pellets/flakes.

But maybe that is a wrong decision & if there were dither fish, would the male get more peace. I don't think so though, as she ignores the otos - it's just the male.

As I said earlier, I haven't seen the male since I got home from work & she has also disappeared since she finished eating the eggs. I have loads of plants & hiding places & if they're at the back of the tank, you can't see them - however, I thought at least once in this time, the male would come out.

If he doesn't turn up sometime tomorrow, I guess I'll have to search the tank for him, but will give him a bit of time, in case he's just chilling out.

Cheers
TW