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Can anyone advise on this, my female ancistrus spawned in the middle of my community tank, I managed to get some of the eggs in a net before the catfish decended and luckily I had a spare tank and while I was doing that I saw my female climb the side of the community tank and then drop stone dead The male has not taken any interest in the eggs so they are currently on the substrate of my spare tank, is it likely that any of the eggs will hatch?

did the male ever do to fertilize the eggs? And she just laid them in the middle of the tank? onto of substrate? not even in a cave or anything?.

I have never experienced this, but it doesnt sound like the eggs are viable and fertilized.

Its unexpected, I trying to keep the male and the female separate after having to find homes for 60+ baby plecs as I was getting ammonia problems with the 70L tank the fry were in, but I was in the middle of moving the fish around as my 260L tank finally finished cycling so I moved the community fish in there Friday and because of that the male and the female were in the same tank as I didnt really trust the breeder that wanted the majority of the fry so I moved the male into the community tank while I swapped the water chemistry on my old 125L tank to Malawi.

I suspect some of the eggs were laid Friday / Saturday and she re-spawned again on Sunday, because I checked the cave she used to favour and some eggs were at the back, going to try and see if any hatch as over the next few days as that female was my oldest and favourite fish and I had her some 5+ years since I started fish keeping back in my ill advised 28 litre tank days (I learned!) and considering she died after spawning I kinda owe them the chance to hatch.

Just getting back to this (late) apologies, the real world has been keeping me offline.

Just to update, some of the eggs hatched much to my surprise and I have 6 fry in total swimming around my 70L tank.