Culling

[Kaia]

Well I finally have 2 batches of ruby green babies. I'm guessing about 40ish between 2 moms. As these fry grow what should I look for as far as quality? I will probably feed any bad ones to my Malawi tank?

[African cichlid Keeper]

I found this

http://www.cichlidae.com/askpam/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=102

[Kaia]

OMG?!? boiling water? NEVER!!! I think freezing them is the most humane. Most natural is letting other fish have a meal. Guess I will need to do some reading on gill plates.

[Marty]

If they're small, I'd say feed them to other fish.  If larger, you can euthanize with the freezer method.  You can also throw them onto cement really hard (I've never done this myself, but I know it's fast).  You can also use a bucket with a lot of tranquilizer in it.  Finally, you can use clove oil.

[djlamonica]

I put my runts an  deformities into my tanks with larger fish they never last long.  For larger fish I usually bash them on the cement.  Seems to be the fastest.  Freezer seems slow and painful.

[Regalblue]

Small.... feed to something else larger

Big..... cut it's head off, right behind the Gill plate,  with a very sharp knife. (Do it quickly as possible )

[danielratti]

I throw them in with a big durgon trigger doesn't matter big or small he makes a snack out of it.

[Ron]

As for quality, I'd look for any that have physical deformities and remove them (kinked spine/body, misformed mouth, missing eyes, missing pectoral fin, etc). FWIW, this shouldn't happen much unless there is injury while tumbling within the mothers mouth, as the result of stripping eggs/fry (accidents happen), or they have been inbred too much.