A step-by-step guide on egglaying cichlids

This a simple process on how many cichlids go about during thier breeding time and what happens.

Before and during the brooding of the egg process, many fish will flare at you and even attack other fish and hands. Yes cichlids bite the hand that feeds them.




This is a shot of some convict eggs 14 hours after they have been laid. You should notice that they are a light beige colour.

After roughly 3 days from when the eggs have been laid, you will notice a darkening of the eggs aswell as little black dots. These are the eyes.

Newly hatched fry are barely 1/16th of an inch long. This is a convict that hatched only 8 hours before these shots were taken which still has a large yolk sac attached.


After a a couple of months, you wind up with small replicas of the parents.

Hope this gives an insight to first time cichlid breeders or even people wanting to refresh thier memory!

These convicts are in with angels, clown loaches, tetras, small sharks, a plec, livebearers and even 6 small cons from one of thier spawns that I havent been able to get rid of. There are so many dithers that the convicts just spawn as readily as possible without much hassle.

E-Nyce, it takes 3 days before the eggs are laid to when they hatch. This is an average. Mine have always taken a little shorter then 3 days to hatch.