what the heck just happened?

[Backdraft Bagel]

so my rams had babies, right? everything was proceeding well. the fry were 10 days old today. I turned my back for 2 hours and now there are only 3 fry left. The male and the female are fighting hardcore (yesterday the male was hiding up in the corner).

I'm sure the babies didn't die from water conditions - I have been doing small daily water changes, feeding all the good stuff, etc etc ... so the female's behavior then implies that she's protecting the fry from the male? WTF?

-BB

[Backdraft Bagel]

aw man, the male did eat them. i just saw him do it. wtf?! why did he do that?

dis.

that sucks so much! before i could net him up and get him out of there he had decimated the little fleet of fry. there's like TWO left.

[colesea]

Man, that does suck. Sorry for your loss.
~~Colesea

[Backdraft Bagel]

any idea why this would happen?

[luvfishies]

He's a man-fish.

Seriously, he wants to breed again. She's busy protecting fry. The fry are in his way for spawning again, so he's removing the fry.

If you remove the fry, one of the parents could also "blame" the other, and beat on the "offender". Kribs do this, and I've read where Rams do it too.

Cichlids, by their very nature are protective. But there is ONE urge that supersedes the "protect" urge, and that's the "mate" urge.

Damn...sorry to hear about this though. I was really hoping that your/their brood would be OK in the 5g.

[Backdraft Bagel]

So ... in the future I should watch for signs that he's ready to move on, and remove him.

[1979camaro]

I am far from a fish expert, but let us examine general animal behavior in nature. *

Generally speaking, males want to "plant their seed" as often as possible in order to ensure their genes will be passed on (essentially, continuing the proverbial family line). *The females will not re-enter estereus (get frisky *) until all their children have reached an age where they can fend for themselves and are self sufficient, so it is to the males advantage to kill whatever prevents him from mating (most species do not recognize as a child as "theirs", it is mostly a primate/upper mammal thing). *Furethermore, if the age at which the fry become independant happens to be ten days, then the alpha male (aka daddy) will see the male spawn as competition for mates. *Adding another female into the mix might prevent him from devouring the fry because there is another available mate...of course then you will have twice the number of fry. *I would think your best bet is to remove him should they mate again...but like I said, I don't know all that much about fish.

Kevin