Do perch guard their eggs like crappie or bass do?

Not for one minute. Fertilization ends parental involvement: no nest, no fanning, no defense — the adults swim off to feed and never look back. The contrast is the point: later that same spring, male crappie and both bass species will spend weeks building, fanning, and furiously defending nests, buying each egg individual protection at enormous energetic cost. Perch run the opposite strategy — tens of thousands of eggs, a protective jelly ribbon, and zero care per egg — spending the same energy budget on quantity instead of guard duty. Neither strategy is "better"; they are two working answers to the same math.

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