Cichlid's Eating Their Babies?

Do all fish eat their babies? I know if Betta's have fry you have to take them out when they fall from their bubbles and my husband read somewhere that Cichlid's eat their fry too. Well...about 2 weeks ago his Chichlid spit out about 3-4 babies and we took daddy out and got the tiny little babies put them in the breeding net thing but last night we found another baby that had been hiding under a flower pot! We thought there might have been other fish but daddy ate them before we could scoop them out but this little guy lastest a long time! And I saw some zebra looking Cichlid's at a fish store will lots of their babies swimming around with other fish in the tank but it looked like mom and dad where keeping the babies to one side of the tank and not eating them.

 

What type of cichlid do you have? You may want to read the cichlid profiles at: https://www.fishlore.com/profiles-cichlids.htm to see if your cichlid is a fry-eater.

 

They are my husbands fish and none of them look like any of those photos. The one that just had babies is a Ruby Red? He is beautiful, mean to his mate but gorgeous colors! Like orange/red fins, bluish body and face and he has stripes, his mate is just dark brown. In the 2nd tank are mostly yellow cichlids w/ black tips on their fins. The 2nd tank hasn't had any babies yet just the Ruby Red.

 

Hmm... i'm not real up on cichlids, unfortunately so I'm not sure what type those are.. what I can do is move this thread to the cichlids forum and see if our cichlid members can tell you what the names of those are along with their behavior towards their young.. if you have any pics to post, that might help too.. as far as I know most don't eat their young, but a few species might.. and there are only cichlids in the tanks, right?

 

In the tank with the Ruby Red is his mate and an algae eater. Red is very aggressive not only with the algae eater but his mate too. Then 2nd tank has the same but many more cichlids and one algae eater and those cichlids (the yellow ones with black tips fins) do not bother him.

 

cool.. i'm looking forward to what our cichlid owners will have to say on this.. it's a mystery to me, but our area is Bettas and Livebearers mostly.. although koi angels and african cichlids one day would be a couple of tanks that I'd like to have.

 

It depends on a lot of factors.
But yes, particulally whenthey first start breeding, most cichlids will eat their own fry.

Other factors are:
size of territory
other fish in the tank
amount of hiding places
in harem spawners, number of females to males

Hope this helps,
Dino

 

These are African cichlids's. The aggressive male is a ruby red peacock and he has one female in his tank and an algae eater. Their tank has 2 big holey rocks in the center and a ceramic planter in one corner and a floating artificial plant for the female to hide in to get away from the male when he is picking on her. He usually stays under one of the holey rocks. Right now there is breeding net in the corner with their 5 fry. ;D

 

try adding another female so he can spread his aggresion between the 2 of them,
and your 'yellow cichlids with black fins' are yellow labs.

 

never heard of a ruby red does it look anything like this?




if it does it a jewel chiclid which are great parents but I some times notice my fry go missing

some chiclids eat there babys at a certain age

Peace out Callum!

 

Ruby red profile

 

They soemtimes eat therI babies but only if they feel threatened...for the most part they can be good parents.

 

the ones you saw at the shop are convicts there great parents my fry about 150 are 3 weeks old and mum and dad are still caring real well for them