My fish have laid eggs again for the fourth time, they have been doing so every few weeks. This time they both guarded the eggs and some eggs have hatched out today and are wiggling after 3 days of being laid.

Why did the fish previously eat the eggs after a couple of days when laid and only one fish guarded them, but this time both parents are guarding and the eggs are hatching out?

Do fish know from the off if the eggs are a bad batch and wont hatch out? I would be grateful for any comments, it would be interesting to find out why.

Thanks

Budbin.

CONGRATS!!!!
Nobody really knows why, but it is VERY common for the fish to eat their eggs... Please take pics! I wanna see them...

Do your oscars have tankmates. They may have felt threatened. A lot of times, fish will eat their eggs if threatened by other fish.

Congrats on the babies!

Thanks ever so much for your reply, it makes sense now that you have pointed this out to me. Cheers! Budbin.

I may try and take some pics at some point but I don't want to spook the fish at the moment so I think I will hang fire. I am keeping the fish tank light off as last time when I put it on I wasn't sure if this was the reason why the eggs got eaten.

Cheers! Budbin.

Well please keep us posted on how they are...

short video is more visible for the wigglers to watch.
you can slowly focus your cam to the subject to avoid
untoward reaction from the parents.

Thanks for the advice re: filming the wigglers. Only a handful of wigglers are alive this morning, the rest have died over-night and are all covered over with fuzzy white mold like the rest of the eggs which didn't hatch out. I reckon a couple of hundred at least wigglers died or so. Going to buy some liquid fry food this morning just in case this odd few make it. I think it was best not to interfere and for natural selection to take it's course in the hatching and survival of the eggs, even though I will feed them now that they have hatched and a handful are alive this morning. If one or two come out of this batch it will be fascinating to watch them grow - fingers crossed!

good luck!

Thanks everyone for your comments, the wigglers all died or got eaten. I guess the oscar fish are just learning to be parents as we have never got to this stage with them before. I guess it doesn't help with there being a cat fish of around a foot in length being in the tank with them. I witnessed the female eating a few wigglers, so I guess it could be difficult for the eggs to hatch out and survive anyway in this type of environment. I guess I would have had lots of live babies had I separated the eggs into another tank. As the fish have started to breed regularly we wouldn't have wanted a continual stream of babies anyhow because they would have all needed homes. Although it would have been nice to have seen one or two grow and advance in the tank. Thanks for everyones interest, I'll post another discussion if it happens again and we get a stage further without intervention next time.

Regards

Budbin.

aww that sucks sorry they didnt come out. maybe try removing the catfish to a separate tank for as long as there are wigglers?

Yes, would probably be a good idea to remove the cat fish but I can't bring myself to do this as I feel it would be cruel on the catfish to do that because he's been in there with his oscar friends for a good couple of years now, plus that means setting up a much smaller 4ft spare tank we have. The cat fish is a lovely pet too. I guess I'll just monitor the situation over the next couple of months first, before thinking about dealing with a further change. I don't think I am being cruel for keeping the catfish in with the two oscar fish. They seem to be happy in a Trigon 350 tank together, that we reguarly do water changes every 2 weeks on etc.

Thanks.

Budbin.