Double Reds Breeding?

[jiffy]

I have a pair of double red cacs in a 10 gallon tank with 6 cardinal tetras and 3 skunk cories. I just got the apistos last week. I have noticed the male showing off in front of the female the past few days and now the female is turning yellowish and becomming more aggressive and territorial over a cave I have in the tank.

Is this breeding behavior? Also, if I wanted to raise the fry, what should I do? I'm not sure if the other fish, or even the apistos themselves, will eat the eggs and or any fry.

Any info is appreciated.

 

[Apistt_ed]

Hello jiffy,
To answer your questions, yes that is the beginnings of spawning behaviour. They will keep doing this till the female is ready and then she will ultimately clean a spot (usually in a cave-like area) and they will do their duty.
Depending on your individual fishes, they may or may not be the best of parents and with practice, they'll come to be fierce defenders of their brood, but if you'd like to get a better percentage of fry from the pair, I'd move the corys as all cats still feed well into the darkness of night whereas apistos do not. Corys will most definitely eat the eggs and fry if possible and can get relentless in pursuit of it as I have seen in the past. Since your tank is a 10gallon tank, quite small, I'd move the tetras also. They will pick off the fry when and if they can. Leaving just the pair alone will yield the best results. Best wishes and luck. john

 

[blueblue]

Getting all the other fish, besides the mother aggie, out will be one way which can ensure that the fry won't be eaten by other fish. Another way is,
once the fry appeared free swimming, catch them out and raise them up by yourself... though it is NOT easy to catch the small fry without good skills...

 

[mooman]

I'm a fan of leaving the fry with the mom for at least a week or two before removal. If you wait too long however, they will spread out and be very hard to remove. What I do is turn off the lights for a few hours. The fish will group together and go to sleep, then you can use a length of 1/2 in tubing and a flashlight to siphon the little school of fry into a grow-out tank.