More Babies!

Ok, so this one gives me a little more reason to be excited! Last night, my frontosas spawned! I allowed the female to hold her eggs overnight, but due to the lengthy development time for frontosas, you should always strip the female of her eggs or she could die of starvation (or eat all of the fry). Essentially African cichlid females will hold eggs and fry in their mouths in a special cavity and go 3 or more weeks without eating. In order to keep them strong, I always strip my females of their eggs. "Stripping", as it is called, is very simply done. You need to capture your female as quickly and gently as possible. Try not to stress her out. Hold her over the container that you will use to hold the eggs/fry with her stomach in your palm (with the net between your skin and hers - you want to avoid touching them with bare hands if at all possible). Be firm, but gentle, and wrap your fingers around her front half while slightly applying pressure to the corners of her mouth. This will pry her mouth open. Fill a turkey baster with water from her tank and stick just the tip of it in her mouth, then flush her with the water. This safely removes the eggs/fry from the cavity and they will spill out into the container. Be very quick but gentle in this process so as to not harm your female. Search her mouth thoroughly, and if you cannot see anymore eggs or fry, release her into the aquarium.

The setup you use to hold the fry is called a tumbler. Generally you should use a small, skinny container filled with the aquarium water. You will also have an air pump with an air stone inserted into the container. Here's how I made mine very simply:

I used a typical container that you find at Petsmart, Petco, Walmart, etc. that hold bettas. I've purchased multiple bettas throughout my time and saved the containers for this exact reasoning. They already have a decent sized hole cut in the center of the lid. Buy an air pump and small air stone that is adequate for a 10 gallon aquarium.When you set up your air stone, have it set as high as it will go, slip it through the hole in the lid, then put it in the container, fastening the lid. This will keep the eggs constantly moving around, which helps prevent fungus from attacking them, as well as providing oxygen release into the water.

With all that said, my frontosa's first spawn gave me 35 eggs, and I'm hoping all continues to go well!