|| For future referance. I used to breed yellow labs. Here's what
|| I did with them. Initially, I had a breeding colony of labs in a
|| 90G community tank. When I would notice a female holding, I would
|| leave her in the main tank for about ten days as long as she wasn't
|| being picked on by other fish too much. After ten days, or sooner
|| if she was being picked on, I would remove her from the main tank
|| and place her into a 10G holding tank and keep her there for another
|| 4 days or so. At two weeks, the fry's egg sacks should be almost
|| gone and by 3 weeks they should be ready to be spit. Whether the
|| holding female will spit at this point depends on several factors
|| including: the females health and stress levels and water
|| temperature. The warmer the water, the shorter they will hold,
|| conversely the cooler the water temp the longer they tend to hold.
|| At 80 deg F, they usually will spit by 4 weeks if not stressed. At
|| 70 deg F. water, they may hold for a month or more (again, if not
|| stressed). I usually stripped my females between weeks 3 and 4, if
|| she hadn't spit at that point yet. The easies way I found to strip
|| a holding female was to use a rather large net and net the female
|| (gently of course) leaving her in the net in the water. Then I would
|| take a turkey baster, remove the rubber squeeze bulb from the end,
|| and put the tube half in the net witht he female. I would then
|| gently insert the holding female HEAD FIRST into the back of the
|| turkey baster tube, gently put the bulb back on the back, then
|| gently squeeze the baster. The idea is to force the water down the
|| tube into the gills of the lab from behind, thereby forcing her to
|| open her mouth and flushing all the fry out of the end of the
|| baster. You then remove the bulb and remove the female. I usually
|| strip the fry into either a breeding net or another fry tank. I
|| then keep the female separated for a few days and make sure she is
|| fed well to get her strength back before returning her to the
|| community tank. This allows the stressed female to regain her
|| strength before being inundated by over-zealous tank mates.
|| good luck with your labs and fry.
|| Matt

How cool is that??? She finally spit them out, and I went from 22 to 15 in
a week, although I never found any dead floaters.... I presume they were
munched on... They are the yellowest labs I've ever seen as babies, and a
few are getting some black on their dorsal fins...

Thanks for your well wishes


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