Cacatuoides breeding - Eggs one day gone the next

[timQ]

Hey all, 

My female super red decided to lay some eggs in the cave. I saw alot of salmon colored eggs on the top of the cave at night one day. Next day I go and check and they are gone. Is it common for the female/male to eat them?

[FrostiesFishes]

It can be common for them to eat them. Stress, maturity, and other factors can take effect. They may eat them many times over before they get better. Once you get wrigglers I would typically pull the spawn so I have some future stock to work with and allow the pair to try and raise future spawns for following attempts. Some times I may only talk half a spawn and allow them to raise the other half. But some times they will eat them soon after messing/returning the cave. I also do not think dithers do anything helpful with apisto’s/rams at least not in my experience , at least from a breeding stand point. Other may have different opinions. But I’ve got angels that won’t spawn if they have other fish in the tank. I Remove the dithers and typically within 48 hours they’ll spawn. Useful tactic to get large spawns less often instead of getting smaller spawns every 10-14 days

Edited May 18, 2021 by FrostiesFishes

[Paul_Obermiller]

@FrostiesFishes dithers are suppose to distract the parents and turn on the guarding instinct instead of just eating the eggs. Dean has found that pencil fish are very good dithers with apistos because they stay to the mid/top of the tank and have very small mouths so it's almost impossible for them to eat eggs. I am going to try neons with my rams and apistos just to see how they do. I am only going to add 2 per pair to see how they do. How big is the angelfish tank?

[FrostiesFishes]

yeah, I've had the opposite effect with using dithers. I feel like the parents can't really get the dithers away like the could in the wild. this just ends up adding more stress. now this depends on the size of the aquarium you are using. But experiment and find out what works the best for you. 

Edited June 4, 2021 by FrostiesFishes