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Hi,

My seven convict fry are 16 days old now and around 1 cm in size. They are in a 6 gallon tank with a spong filter only. One of them has grown a bit larger and has started chasing the other six fry. I never thought they would start fighting so early. This is affecting the growth of the other fry as well. Is this behavior normal? What should I do? Should I shift them to a 20g (that has a few tiger barb fry). Thanks in advance.

-Mughal

I haven't seen this with any of my convict spawns but I'm not very surprised with anything cons do lol

Can you add some plants, driftwood, or other type of hiding places for the fry?

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

It is survival of the fittest. The larger ones will want to chase the others off so they get all/more of the food. Just move the larger one to another tank and the rest should be fine. Until you get another larger one, lol.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I've moved them to a bigger tank and placed some rocks. The smaller ones have lots of places to hide. But Im really amazed to see this behavior from 3 weeks old cons!

-Mughal

perfectly normal,i only just traded up my con parents like 3 days ago,and they wre pumping out fry for over 6 months!and they babies were just plane crazy,same as yours,the smaller weeker ones were getting knocked around and chased off by the bigger tuffer ones,as said above you can take out the bigger 1,but the next babie in line will just take his place.you think its bad with 7,try having like 50+ all fighting and trying to be boss.i normally hang on to a good size scoop of babies for feeders.theres nothing like watch sibling rivalry

The batch was over fifty in number. A friend of mine has a pond that was not containing any fish at the time I had this batch. I put them in his pond and they are doing great there. These seven are the ones which we gave up trying to catch after struggling for an hour
-Mughal

yeah easy 50+,the batches were getting bigger every time they spawned,but my other larger fish loved all the feeders they were getting!if you can get yourself a divider,and when you want to catch,whatever,babies, full grown adults,you just shoo the fish to 1 end of your tank,or if its a batch of babies shoo them,slip the divider in closer to the end where the fish or babies are,or you can use to net to sort of round them up to get them where you want, if you know what i mean,then net your fish,i normally try to place the divider where they have a place to sift throo the gravel,like a clearing,so they have no place to hide,thats how i get my babies out,you know how hard they can be to catchespecally when theres room to run and hideanyway,im rambling on,good luck with your fiesty fellas