Kribensis eggs infertile, help/advice.?

Hi,


I have two pairs of kribs one pair has had two lots of eggs but both lots were infertile.





Waht i want to ask is would i be best off mixing the two pairs so theres two males to fertilise the eggs. or would they fight? The tank is plenty big enough for two pairs, but should i mix them or keep them separate?





Thanks.Kribensis eggs infertile, help/advice.?
They are going to fight to some degree yes, because males don't typically tolerate other males around very well. I haven't actually bred Kribensis myself, but I feel with any species you try to breed, at least let's say with African Cichlids, you will probably find that tank size and the aggression go hand in hand. You take a species and house multiple males in say a 20 or 30 gallon tank, probably bad idea and are going to have issues. It's just not enough footprint for two males to find their own niche in a tank like that. Take the same group, put them in something like a 55 or 75 or 90 etc... you see things becomming more calm and working out. As tank size increases, the better the odds are that aggression will become diluted or localized.





So in part, I think this depends on the size of the tank. It might be something else all togeather. If you have 2 pairs of kribs, why not just try first, switching out the males? Just leave the fish where they are, as the way this is worded, I'm assuming they are in 2 different tanks, and all you would have to do is trade the males out of each tank. Try that first, see if this causes any changes. Or even vice verse, instead of moving the males, trade/swap out the females.





Just looking at what's going on though, I'm not 100% sure that this is an infertility issue. Are you positive that you've conditioned them properly on diet? Have you tried an empty substrate? I'm very new into egg laying cichlids myself. I just had a Madagascar cichlid species that lays eggs spawn for me, so I really don't have extensive experience in this area, but I've been under the impression, the use of empty substrates make this easier. My species, I have 2 females and 1 male. Both females laid eggs, but in different parts of the tank. The footprint is 100 gallons. One female laid her eggs in the upper part of the tank, on the surface of a brick, the other excavated a pit in the gravel and attached her eggs to some shells. A day and a half into this, the female with the site up on the brick basically gave up, and let the nest get eaten, but the one in the substrate worked out and they've been free swimming almost a week now.





I know a couple Angelfish breeders, and the suggestions I got was to use a bare substrate next time around. I really do not know if this will impact you or not, but I'm trying to throw out all possible variables I can think of to nail down infertility or not as 100% certainty.