Average Con?

[Dissy]

Nothing. If there are no males and 3 females, the third female won't lay eggs. There is no other con to pair up with, so she won't lay eggs.

Female Cons will lay eggs whether or not there is a male to fertilize them. I was merely addressing your insistence that something has to be being done wrong for them not to.

 

[Dissy]

@Dissy, sorry can't answer your question, cause I just don't know.. sounds like what your doing to great for any fish... Wait, is that a male? I'm just saying, because the females in my observation are a little more roundish looking...

I wanted to comment on how beautiful your con is..

I still think it's a male... Tho, with all the orange, it's a female.

 

[Dissy]

Dissy was that a con x jack Dempsey hybrid behind the con in your pic?

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

LOL. No, that's a Black Widow Tetra. Was used as a dither to bring one of my Sevs out of hiding. (It works.)

 

[MN_Rebel]

Female Cons will lay eggs whether or not there is a male to fertilize them. I was merely addressing your insistence that something has to be being done wrong for them not to.

Actually only two fish can be a "mated" pair, not a trio which would be rare. So you have three convicts, only two are allowed to "mate".

 

[Younglin]

Female Cons will lay eggs whether or not there is a male to fertilize them. I was merely addressing your insistence that something has to be being done wrong for them not to.

Actually only two fish can be a "mated" pair, not a trio which would be rare. So you have three convicts, only two are allowed to "mate".

Exactly. The third female won't lay eggs without another con in there.

 

[Red Devil Horde]

Actually only two fish can be a "mated" pair, not a trio which would be rare. So you have three convicts, only two are allowed to "mate".

Mostly true...

Yes in a tank full of cons a male will choose a female & stick with her IME.
The other females will try to tease/steal him, but the alpha female will chase the other girls off.
But...
I've had a female con leave here usual male con for a prettier Texas.
The male con got so damn stressed we was just darting around, I had to remove him to a tank with his offspring.
He still darted around in this tank a lil , but mainly just moped around his area, only really showed signs of life during feeding time.
He was always the alpha male in any tank he was in too,he died a few months later.
Funny how these things actually affect the fish.

 

[bobblehead27]

If that's true, then I'm doing something wrong, too... I had 3 female Convicts - 2 of which laid eggs every week (no male to help things along). My third female has never once laid eggs, and she was 1.25" when I got her back in November. It's May, and she's still never laid an egg, and she's now probably 3". There are also Severums in there, some which I expect are probably male - too young to see markings). She's in perfect health, and is a *beautiful* fish (despite my really bad pic of her).

Tanks 125g, filtrations an FX5, water changes are small, and *very* frequent (3-4 days), with larger being monthly. Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 5ppm, temp 80-82. Food is a mix of veggies, NLS pellets, frozen bloodworms, frozen beefheart, frozen bring shrimp, cichlid crisps, and dried seaweed.

So what am I doing wrong?



So what am I doing wrong?

Sometimes fish that are the smallest and least dominant will act like the other sex as to not attract the alpha's aggression, so in that case, maybe your small con acts this way out of fear of attack

 

[Dissy]

Sometimes fish that are the smallest and least dominant will act like the other sex as to not attract the alpha's aggression, so in that case, maybe your small con acts this way out of fear of attack

There was no alpha male. All 3 cons were female. She's also certainly not afraid of anything in her tank. She just (for whatever reason) does not act anything like a female, and has never laid eggs. (My others all laid them even without males in the tank).

Despite the orange, I was always so convinced she was a male, I named her Guido. That's still her name.

 

[Younglin]

We already told you why she didn't lay eggs.

 

[Pandamania]

So fishmamma, how's the Con doing today? This thread sorta got side-tracked there! Would love to see more shots of 'him'. *Maybe you could get a photo of your newest member munching down on some food for us?