Why Incubate Eggs?
1
To increase the numbers of surviving fry (baby fish), some parent fish are poor parents as they eat their own eggs or fry, fish breed in community tanks where most or all the fry are eaten soon after the parents stop caring for them. Fact, an incubator can hold and hatch more eggs then the parent mouth brooder over a 3-week incubation period *(if the eggs are placed in the incubator the day of spawning)*.
2
It is very rewarding experience watching eggs turn into fry. Breeders can sell the fry they produce to help pay for their hobby (addiction in some cases) or even turn their fish breeding skills into a fulltime business.
4
The aquarium trade has a reasonability to breed enough numbers of fish to take fishing pressure off wild fish stocks of fish, to supply the demand for from aquarium trade. This will assist in the sustainable harvest of wild fisheries which will greatly reduce or prevent the probability any further loss of species.
3
Last but most importantly, numbers of wild stocks are declining, due to loss of habitat, fishing pressure for food and the aquarium trade. IUCN lists a total of 156 cichlids species from the Great Lakes of Africa, as vulnerable, 40 as endangered, and 69 as critically endangered, 6 species are now thought to be extinct in the wild.