A friend of mine has some kribs. He kept losing the fry batch after batch and couldn't figure it out. Finally he seperated the male from mom and the fry and figured out the male was eating the fry to get the female to breed again. Now every batch he just seperates them for a while and all is good again. Here is his article from our club newsletter. With permission of course
Breeding the Pelvicachromis pulcher AKA ‘Kribensis’ or ‘Kribs’
By Tom Heisler
I received a young trio of Kribs from a fellow club member. I placed them in a planted 29 gallon tank with some Cory cats, Ancistrus, and Bosemani Rainbows and left them to their new home. They would usually hang around the bottom half of the tank with the exception of feeding time when they would rise to the top to compete for food with the Rainbows.
One day I saw the male protecting a section of driftwood and I decided to investigate. There were multiple fry under the driftwood and the female was protecting them from below while the male took watch on the upper side of the driftwood. I fed these guys crushed flake by wetting it first and blow- ing it through a tube in their general vicinity. I also used the tube method to feed them brine shrimp.
I observed them picking at some java moss which I would imagine contained tiny critters too small for my eyes to see. Approximately ten days later I noticed the fry had disappeared. I wondered if I had- n’t fed them enough or not enough variety off food. Approximately 25-30 days later I noticed another school of fry and the parents were in their protective mode as before. Around ten days later the fry were gone again! I had a suspicion that the male was eating the fry so he could breed again.
Approximately 25-30 days later, like clockwork, there were more fry swimming around in the tank. This time I removed the male and I also removed the other female of the trio that was not protecting the fry which left one female to protect the fry from the other fish in the tank. This time I was able to successfully raise the fry.
The two Kribs that were removed were placed in a ten gallon tank with some Aulonocara fry and some caves. Here is where it gets interesting! About three days later I noticed eggs in the cave where the female resides and I thought to myself this lucky male really gets around! A day or two later I no- ticed the eggs were gone and I thought the male ate them again. I then noticed the male in a cave de- fending the eggs. He had stolen them from the female! A day or two later I did not see the eggs again so, of course, I thought the male had eaten them. I looked in a cave where the female was residing and saw a few wigglers in there. The female had stolen her eggs back! The next day I saw the wig- glers in a cave with the male again. A few days later all the fry were gone which is what I should have expected. If I had a suitable housing for the male I would have removed him and probably would be raising a second batch of fry but in my fish room there always seems to be a shortage of tanks or tank space. As I write this, the trio are still in the ten gallon tank. It has been well over two months and I have not seen any eggs lately. Once the fry in the planted tank are large enough where they cannot be eaten by the father, I plan to re-introduce the trio back into the planted tank as they seem happier in that one.
In conclusion, my recipe for breeding Kribs is a planted tank, a hollow piece of driftwood or a cave where the parents can spawn, and removal of the male once the fry are free swimming.
Could we have lost them all? The only other stock in the tank are neons, diamond tetras, a few assassin snails and a lone male platy. Water checks out fine though it did have a very slight touch of ammonia. (I was worried about hoovering the bottom of the tank too much as I didn't want to accidentally suck them up!) Any ideas?
