You should be able to see in her mouth from front on as well, and be able to
judge if they are still eggs, or have developed into fry. I usually try to
keep her in the large tank until she is ready to spit the babies, unless she
is being picked on, then I will seperate her earlier. I set up a 10-15g with
water from the big tank, and set the heater to be the same (if you want to
stay breeding, make sure you always have an empty tank and a cycled filter,
once they start the just keep going!!) Put a sponge over the filter intake
as well, so you dont suck up any fry. There is never liquid fry food in the
lfs here, so I usually grind up my dry fish food (all the kinds in the
freezer) in a coffee grinder for the fry, frozen daphnia is good and small
too
Good Luck
Kelly

"skozzy" wrote in message
u...
Is it the male or female that holds the fry in the mouth ?

And from the time you notice it holding the fry, how long before the
parent
can no longer keep them safe in the mouth ?.

I have one that is holding fry again and I need to set up another tank
before I start to loose any. The last lot that survived (3-5 months ago)
went from 18 to now 13 fry. So, how long do you think I have to set up
this
new temp tank.