***calling fish keeping geeks... LOTF etc i need some *urgent* advice****

[wannaBe]

I have bristle nose catfish in my (dh's?) tank.

We haven't seen them for a few days, and then ds spotted them right at the back of the tank hiding. He said he thought they had eggs but obviously we didn't see them, but on doing reading had read that they do guard their eggs, and young.

Now dh has spotted them at the back of the tank, and there is at least one baby that we can see, but there are a lot of plants and rocks in our tank to hide them.

thing is, we have angel fish in the tank.

They eat the guppy fry which I'm not too worried about as we were beginning to be overrun with them, but I don't want the angels to eat the catfish.

will the adults (who are signifficantly bigger than the angels) be able to protect them until they are viable? or should I get a net/nursery tank? and if I do move them to another tank how the hell will I catch them, given they appear to be well hidden in the plants etc?

the parents do appear to be guarding them as dh has just seen them see off a cori that got too close...

advise?

bump

Hmm, hard one - you will probably lose them trying to catch the babies up to be honest. Is it feasible to put the angels into another tank? Probably your best solution that I can think of anyway. At least they have the cover of the plants for now - but they will need to grow quite a lot before the angels are unable to touch them, especially the bigger angels. I have seen a big angel eat an adult guppy before now

they're not big angels, and the tank is very deep. the babies are in a depression under some wood - almost like a cave, and both parents are there, esp the male appears fiercely protective and haven't seen either of the angels anywhere near there.

guess I'll just have to chance it, or convince dh to buy another tank for the angels while the catfish mature.

Well the parents have done well to get the fry this far tbh.

Ancistrus (bristle noses) are pretty fierce despite their cuddly looks so you might be OK.

In a community tank you sort of have to let nature take it's course - the little ones are going to have a long way to go before they are safe. I don't think it is going to be easy to move the parents and fry now and have a suitable set up in time. Best bet is move the most likely predators but then you have to have somewhere to put them for a long time. If they have bred once they probably will again so you might, over time, get good idea of who is causing the problems in the tank and deal with them accordingly .

This may not be possible depending on the dimensions of your tank, but what about partitioning off the angels into a separate half of your tank to the ancistrus. A non-solid wall of some sort (ie holey! Net/mesh etc) would be best to allow water flow but keep the relevant fish separate.
Just a thought. Congrats on the babies btw!