Need help getting fry out of tank please

[The Wedge]

siphoning won' work there is way too much rock...how am I gonna do this. Any suggestions would be helpful.

[Lady Hobbs]

A fish net.

[OscarFan]

a really fine fish net.

[The Wedge]

Well...took out roughly 80 lbs. of rock...who knows how much was left...I was able to wrangle about 6 of the dem fry. I think there could be one or two left. I noticed about two females holding...and now that I did a water change and rearranged the rock the fish are acting very flirtatious toward one another...I can't win. It looks like I will be removing the rock work out of my tank at least once a month now. BTW...had a dead Demasoni earlier today...that's how I noticed the extra fry...I believe he was a casualty of war

[KingFisher]

a turkey baster works great for sucking up the fry. Would you be able to maneuver one with your rocks? Maybe try it next time, just make sure it's a new clean one.

[kaybee]

I'm never successful with removing fry from my main tank because once I remove the rocks to get at them, the larger cichlids (and not the mother) gobble them up before I can net them.

[Dixie]

If you really want to keep the fry, the easiest way to deal with it would be to remove the holding female and put her in another tank alone to spit. A 10g. would work well for that and if you don't put gravel or any substrate on the bottom of the tank, it's easier to clean. You can just suck up the "dirt" with a turkey baster. I'd put a small rock pile or some fake plants in to make the mom feel more comfortable and to have something to spit into.

It's sure not easy to remove tiny fry from a big tank with big hungry fish watching. Maybe you could use a tank divider and get all the bigger fish behind the divider then go after the fry. Might help some.