Something went horribly wrong...

[ggkmp]

I have Apisto Cacatuoides pair in 40g community tank with 6 Glowlight Tetra and 1 Siamese Algae Eater.

I didn't plan to breed the pair or anything but today I noticed bunch baby fries hatched (they were all in the cave with the mother)

So I did my normal weekly water change about (40%) and added the typical dechlorine solution and 2 pumps of ferts with iron (it's heavily planted).

But now all of the babies are either died or eaten by mother or something because they are all gone...

I was very careful with my water change and were feeding them well.

Can anyone help explain to me what happened?

 

[Katsutaro Yoshimoto]

It could be a number of things in my opinion. Most likely, when you were doing the water change, the tetras had a better shot at eating the babies and went for them. It could also be the female being freaked out from the water change (tubes in the tank, lower water etc.) and she ate her babies. I'm not sure if the siamese algae eater would eat them, but I know that they are opportunistic omnivores so they will eat fish babies if given the chance. Hope that helps, tetras are notorious fish baby eaters.