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i have a pair of jewel cichlids that have laid eggs and fry being born from the eggs successfully once before.. although every 3 weeks or so the female lays more eggs but a day or two later they just disappear or become so small you can just see them like empty eggs.. is this because the male has not fertilised the eggs???

Sorry no-one has replied and it's been about 5 days wow !
Hang in there, hopefully help will be along soon. In the meantime I suggest doing a search on google.com

The Amazon Nut...

I had a pair of cichlids that did the same thing. Once I removed all other fish from the tank including pleco, they finally got it right! It took at least 4 times. I now have about 20 fry that are over 1 in in size. They will soon be ready for the LFS. Keep doing your weeking water changes with cool water, that is like the nature rain water they get in the lakes.

I've read somewhere that West African cichlids like your Jewel cichlids tend to eat their eggs for two reasons. First is that they are too young and just learning. Secondly, which I believe is the case with my Africa Butterfly cichlid pair, is that they might feel there are too many other fish in the same tank that would eventually eat them. They probably feel that it's not worth raising a batch in a tank that has many inhabitants.

To get around this, try and move some of the fish from the tank (if possible) but leave a few. This would obviously depend on what you have in your set up though. Good luck!