# Eating while holding eggs?



## pack-rat (Aug 2, 2010)

Hi folks,
My tank has been up since June and I still think of my fish as juvies, but, I came home from vacation last weekend and one of my yellow labs looks to be holding. I have not seen any eggs or fry but she is acting very shy, staying in the rocks most of the time, and she has the extended throat pleats. Actually one of the first clues I noticed was at feeding time she would swim around with the others like usual but she looked perplexed when she came to a bit of food. She would just look at it and then swim to the next one.

Assuming I'm right and she is holding, I have two questions:

1. I've recently (last two days) noticed that she is taking food. Not a lot and not as actively as normal, but still she takes a few pieces every time I feed. This is way too much for any feeding fry she could be holding I believe. Can the mothers take food while holding? I understood that they could not.

2. This is my first spawn, and I am not expecting success, but if I wanted to remove her and try to save the fry, what advice do you have for getting her out? Honestly, whenever I try to catch a fish in this tank it is a major ordeal. They are fast and good at using the rocks for cover. I would expect to have to break down most of the rock work, and by that time I would think that a new mother would surely panic and spit her eggs/fry.

Thanks for your advice.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

> 1. I've recently (last two days) noticed that she is taking food. Not a lot and not as actively as normal, but still she takes a few pieces every time I feed. This is way too much for any feeding fry she could be holding I believe. Can the mothers take food while holding? I understood that they could not.


They will sometimes eat a few pellets while holding. This is not to feed the fry as the fry likely still have their egg sacs and would not eat it anyway.



> 2. This is my first spawn, and I am not expecting success, but if I wanted to remove her and try to save the fry, what advice do you have for getting her out? Honestly, whenever I try to catch a fish in this tank it is a major ordeal. They are fast and good at using the rocks for cover. I would expect to have to break down most of the rock work, and by that time I would think that a new mother would surely panic and spit her eggs/fry.


This is pretty much what we all go through when we have to remove a holding mom. Every month or two I remove about 200 lbs of rock from my 125 gallon to catch holding females. There's really no other way to do it. Sometimes I can get away with putting up a divider and only removing half the rocks, but that's about as easy as it gets.

Surprisingly, holding moms are usually really good about holding onto their fry. Even after removing the rocks and chasing after one for 5 minutes with a net and then putting her in a tupperware bowl to strip her, I've never had a female spit her brood out (out of 20+ times with many different females).


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## pack-rat (Aug 2, 2010)

Thanks for the input, Kanorin. I won't worry about the light feeding as long as the other signs of holding eggs continue.

And on the netting problem, I guess I was just hoping someone had a really neat solution that I was not smart enough to think of. Wishful thinking. But a periodic rearrangement of the rocks has benefits of its own I guess. Sounds like I need to get some bins to make handling my rocks easier.

So this female has been holding for one or two weeks now I believe. I will let her go another week, and if she still has them, I may try to isolate her or strip the fry. Again, this is my first spawn, so it's probably likely that one of us (me or her) will screw it up!


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