Paretroplus nourissati fry at 5 weeks post spawning

Paretroplus nourissati or lamena from Madagascar is a rheophilic, slender bodied member of the Paretroplus genus and typically found in river sections that are shallow, clear and fast-flowing. I have had this spectacularly colored species, on and off for over 5 years now, and the latest ’go round’ has been a more successful one than previous ones. I have several pairs that have been breeding but only one pair has gotten it right so far. Paretroplines generally don’t make great parents and can be inconsistent in the attention paid to fry. Some claim that they will leave their eggs for most any reason (feeding, someone passes in front of the tank) and leaves them open to easy predation by other tank mates. For this reason, if I want fry, I will pull the spawn. Getting a hatch doesn’t guarantee success as it tends to do with CAs and SAs. There seems to be a point about a month into their development where they start to die off. I have done various things to bring this to an end. I am getting better with each spawn. One of the first, the viability of the fry was poor so I had about a 10% hatch, and only 2 survived out of say 100. The second spawn which was larger (~200) were doing fine up until about 4 weeks, when they went off their food, became weak and died in large numbers. Out of the 200, 50 survived and seem to be on their way (fingers crossed). The third spawn did better than any so far, reaching a little over a centimeter in 4 weeks. But then the ’plague’ hit again and out of say 200, I lost around 50. The remainder seem to be doing fine and are the subject of the video, which I just took. I now have another spawn waiting to hatch. I have a few strategies that I’m going to employ to see if I can set things right. Here they are ... again, fingers crossed.