Convicts behaveor

Question
-------------------------
Followup To

Well.........The mother looks like she is sick and the male has been chaasing her once in a while,She swims kind of ackward and last time she bred none of the parents ate them?And i could use those babies..........And if they are gone for sure what can i do to avoid this from happening again?


Question -
Hey Ron, I am breeding convicts right now and a pair of them just laid about 60-150 eggs so i waited 1 day and on the second they just dissaperd I do not know what happen to all of them,all i have in there is a pleco but he is only 2 and a half in. What happend to all of them?
Answer -
Hi Logan,
  There are two possibilities.  Could they have been laid before you think they were laid?  Fresh eggs are pretty much transparent and very hard to see.  If so, and your water temp is around 80 oF or so, they may have hatched.  
 The other possibility is that either one of the parents or the plecostomus ate them.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>


Answer
Hi Logan,
 If the male is chasing the female, that is not a good sign. You should strongly consider separating them or the female will likely be killed very soon.
 As for avoiding it, there isn't really much you can do to avoid it in advance, you can only watch for it and respond so that the female is protected if a spawning doesn't go well.

-- Ron   
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>