Sexing my black convicts, need a little help

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Lol yea I thought ur ph was high I've noticed that colors convicts up after 10years of owning those suckers I've learned a lot and ill take a pic of my male when I get home wich. Has an orange belly to show. It can happen

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Please do post up a pic of a male with an orange belly. It would be the first documented case that I have seen but stranger things have happened.

I've also not heard that pH has an effect on coloration. Usually it is the breeding coloration that produces the intense color differences.


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heres a video of my male wich just spawned with his bride the orange faded as a net him but if u look closely u will see some specs of it [video=youtube;gpyzBB3UqDk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpyzBB3UqDk&feature=plcp[/video] iremember reading an article about how inbreeding can cause this ill try looking for it
 
heres a video of my male wich just spawned with his bride the orange faded as a net him but if u look closely u will see some specs of it [video=youtube;gpyzBB3UqDk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpyzBB3UqDk&feature=plcp[/video] iremember reading an article about how inbreeding can cause this ill try looking for it

The video isn't very clear. Maybe you should've shot the vid of him in the tank. So can you re shoot it?
- Jill :)
 
oh and if u remember the new family in convicts that were discovered in 2007 archocentrus kanna heres article http://www.borstein.info/profiles/central/archkanna.html males have the orange belly like females so asoon as these hit the markets knowing the diffrence between males and females will become difficult...the orange in mine is stronger then the video shows but he wouldnt be still so i had to net in order to record his belly
 
I have a breeding pair of kanna from Rio Robalo in Panama. Search the threads I started with pics of all my wild type cons. The male I have does not have orange on the belly, but does have a lot of yellow on the head. Sorry, I just have not seen what you are talking about. Cons do have a lot of variability in their coloration, but males do not have the same coloration as females.


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no my male doesnt have the coloration on the fins just some distict orange markings on belly and heres a thread from dissy that use to be a mfk member...http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/forum/index.php?topic=29053.0 one guy has seen the orange belly so im not the only one also to the original poster sorry for the derail lol..
 
They aren't HRP's. The powder blue in HRP's is evident at a very small size. They are LFS convicts, which have a ton of variability when it comes to what they look like. Unless you got them from a reputable source that can identify their collection location back to the wild, I would assume that they are some sort of mix of convict types. The convict group was only recently broken down into four separate species (nigrofaciatus, siquia, kanna, & coatepeque, plus HRP which is scientifically undescribed). There is even discussion amongst those who have collected these fish from the wild that there may be even more undescribed species out there, including the recently available siquia from Rio Cabayo. Folks didn't even know they were "hybridizing" the fish when breeding them years ago. They were simply taking the pretty females and mixing them with the pretty males.

BTW, I have never seen a male convict with orange on the belly. The females will have a range of colors from gold to red depending on where they are from and males will have different coloration as well, but they do not have orange on the belly.

To the OP - good luck with the pair. They should provide you with fry in no time.

+1. You have a M/F pair of Convicts. And I have never seen a single male Convict with the orange belly of a female.

Our water here has a high pH and it has not done well with many other fish but these guys, my other SA/CA cichlids and my Africans love it though. So it works. I bought one at the LFS, because they only had the one left and wanting to have a pair (even if it wasn't a male and female pair) I went to the petsmart around here, not having any other places near me that had them. You don't seem them all that often around here unless you go to the petsmart or the petco.

He's chasing her around the tank like crazy (I know it's bad but they live with my Africans and get along with them great and are doing amazing in this tank. They beat up my jack dempsey who was double their size so they were removed from that tank but eventually I hope will be moved back in once my JD grows a big larger, and can hopefully defend himself) and the only fish the male seems to be worried about besides her is my cobalt blue zebra cichlid. He will out of nowhere go after the blue cobalt and try to lock lips with it but the blue swims away and hides.

How large is this tank? I hope there is plenty of room for the other cichlids to get away once the Convicts start breeding. If not they will constantly be attacked and forced into small sections of the tank. Convicts can go from peaceful tankmates to absolute monsters once they have fry to protect. Even larger cichlids can be harassed by much smaller convicts during breeding.
 
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