Introduction
The most enjoyable part of fish keeping for me is when a mouth brooding cichlid releases her cichlid fry. It is incredible that the mother can hold so many fry, it is incredible that she has done so while not eating for weeks and fending off other fish. It is a time that as hobbyists we closely monitor the health and progress of our fish and they are always the first thing I check when I come home from work. This is a time where, as fish keepers, we often have to intervene to make sure that all goes well for mom and her fry.
Milking Cichlid Fry
Milking refers to the process of extracting fry from a mouth brooding fish before they are naturally released. The most common reason to milk a cichlid is that you will loose the fry to larger fish if they are released into a community aquarium. It may sound a little rough on the fish but it is actually quite a safe and widely used way to make sure your fry have the best chance of growing into juvenile fish. The cichlid milking process is to catch the holding fish around 21 days into the holding period, gently pick her up across your fingers in one hand and hold her head gently with your thumb. Keep her mostly underwater in a small container of water from your aquarium and hold her mouth open for short intervals to let the fry swim out. Cichlid fry should be well developed at this time and able to swim freely, if they have a sack on their underside then they need to remain with the mother for longer to completely develop. Once you have released all or most of the fry from the mother put her in a hospital or floating nursery tank for a few days so she can get her strength back and start eating again.
Raising Cichlid Fry
I’ve written a longer in depth article on this topic and you can find the link to my Cichlid Fry hub at the end of this article. The article also includes videos of holding female cichlids and the milking process discussed above. The main things to consider are the health of your fish, mother and fry, the dangers in the aquarium such as other predatory fish, water quality and tank setup. Before having fry in my tank I never gave a second thought to my filter intake, however after seeing one baby fish get succeed up into the inlet it was covered with fly screen in a matter of minutes.
In summary, make sure you watch a video of the milking procedure and understand that for your particular species there will be a right time to do so around 21 days into holding.
Have fun and good luck.
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