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my yellow labs are breeding now the female wont come out of the little cave wont eat been hiding for about 5 hours now the male keeps chasing everyone away when they get too close will she eat and if she dosent how long will she go without food how long will till the babys be born and when they are born and swim around will the paents protect them from the others????:88)

First of all...for the best malawi cichlid help you should put this in the malawi section, possibly the breeding advice since that's what you're talking about. ok...

She will probably not eat much, they can go for weeks without eating hardly at all. If she is a first timer however, she may get too tempted by the food, start to eat, and swallow all the fry. This is common but after a couple of batches she will learn. Anyways yes they can go for almost a month without food depending on how much energy they use (i.e. if they get chased a lot), so her staying in the cave isn't really a bad thing. Some people will "strip" their females if they feel the fish has held the fry too long and is starving.

Now when you say "babies be born" I'm assuming you mean how long will it be until they come out of the female's mouth. This depends on the amount of activity in the tank and the tank temperature. Usually it is around 3 weeks.

Cichlids are naturally better parents than other fish, but electric yellows still aren't the best and might eat the fry, so if you want to keep the fry I would suggest setting up another tank for them. hth

btw: if you want any info on stripping the female ask and I might be able to find some for you.

thank you i will ask someone

my yellow labs are doing good female will mostly hide other thsn that everything is fine