Disappearing BN eggs!

Hey ya'll!

So I have visited this site a lot this past year to find advice on my BN plecos and finally decided to join.   

After a year of trying to breed, my young two very young BN spawned when I had temporarily taken them out of my main tank. Early on 5/11/14 is when I believe the eggs were laid. The are from my Albino SF female and Common LF male. They started hatching on 5/15/14 and finished hatching on 5/16/14. As they turned into wigglers, dad started kicking them out of his cave! So I scooped them up with a turkey baster and put them in a breeder box. Dad continued to fan his cave even though the babies were gone. (I felt horrible but hey, he kicked them out!)

So it has been two days since they finished hatching. I had counted 87 little wigglers!! For a first spawn from these guys, I think that is pretty good.   HOWEVER, today when I checked them this morning, there are under 40 babies. They are still in the breeder box so I am so confused.  They only other living thing in this tank besides the parents are some shrimp, probably 30. There are no dead fish in the box so what could have happened? I am no confused and disappointed because I wanted to see how the genetics turned out and now I only have half of the original ones to follow.

Any ideas??      

Dad fanning his eggs!


Just after hatching.

They may have slipped out of the gaps and once they are out there the shrimp would have cleaned them up pretty quickly. Still, having over 40 for your first spawn is a great result

I'm pretty sure the babies got sucked out of the gap by the adults or they just slipped out of the gap..

I had the same issue with my Platy fry in one of those boxes. If the current is too strong in the main tank, it creates a vacuum effect and sucks the fry out of the gaps. It's horrible to see happen. I've now got a net one for my fairly new wrigglers. I'm not sure about the rest but I got one by the brand of Liya. It's a net breeder. THe net goes over the corners up the top of the box which makes it harder for them to get out  Totally safe!