If your trying to breed firemouth cichlids (Thorichthys meeki) then the best advice I can give you is what all cichlid clubs will tell you..... Grow up about 6 fish together since this will almost guarantee you at least one male & female and allow the fish to select the best mate themselves. Having a runt to pick on and others to defend against will strengthen the pairing bond and is natural as well as part of a cichlids interesting character. Most people buy fish from different sources to reduce inbreeding. Once you have selected the best pair, you can easily remove the other larger fish by swapping or selling. Provided you havent killed any fish, you wont have lost any money since adult fish with colour should be worth more than the juveniles you bought and you will have learnt a lot about the care and general behaviour of this species by the time they are ready for breeding. Firemouths are a beautiful fish, especially when breeding.
Fishmeat,
You can encourage spawning behaviour with good food (I prefer earthworms) and optimum tank conditions - space, temperature, environment, privacy etc. Spacious single species tanks make breeding much easier. Since you want to stimulate breeding with good food, dont feed them good food all the time! Do some research on the fish species you have. FH are pretty aggressive so I would let them spawn through some eggcrate or have a hole which only the smaller one can get through. I havent breed Flowerhorns before but have lots of experience with similar cichlids.
