tropheus breeding - when is a good time to strip the mother?

[Cubbies]

When is a good time to strip the babies from the mother? To make sure they were fertilized the other day I separated her from the tank to a breeding tank on the side of the glass and I opened her mouth and 3 babies swam out. I put here back into the breeding tank and they all swam right back into her mouth.

So I ask when is a good time to strip her? Or will she just know when the time is right? What do the majority of you do with your trophs?

[eklikewhoa]

I do not strip my females.... they know what to do on their own.

If the eggs were not fertilized then the female would have already spat them out or ate them.

[Cubbies]

One of my african cichlids actually kept the eggs in her mouth for over a month and a half. She got extremely skinny that I thought she was going to die. So I dumped them out and they were still black eggs. I did not have a male even in the tank of the same breed though. She got healthy again though and then did the same damn process, so I sold her.

[Cubbies]

And then I sold all of my other fish and bought Trophs! This is the 4th troph I have that is holding in the past 2 months. Afer not seeing any trophs holding for several months it has spread lall over the tank now. It is amazing to see what the mothers will do to protect there own.

[eklikewhoa]

I have some females that will hold till they can't anymore which is well past a full month. Even then she will still attempt to hold the fry slowly releasing one by one as they get too big.