Breeding Peacock Cichlids

[Kolton13]

Hey, I’m kolton I’m 14 and I’m thinking of breeding peacock cichlids In my 50 gallon tank, when the fry are born and mature and I get lots of practice and in maybe a year or 2 maybe selling some of them, any tips on how to make the best quality cichlids would be awesome thanks

 

[Kolton13]

Btw I have a 75 gallon for the fry when they mature

 

[deeda]

Purchase good quality stock from a reputable vendor or hobbyist and only one species Aulonocara per aquarium.

Be sure to see if the fish you want to breed are in demand or that you have a good way to sell them locally.

Are you planning on buying juveniles or adults?

 

[tlindsey]

I suggest you join a fish club association. The demand for African Peacock Cichlid are up and down and you may not make much money breeding them. I recommended the fish club because they have sales and swap meetings. You will also get rarer species at Cichlid Association's. Most LFS's won't give you money but credit like off of fish food and other fish related items. Also do as much research as you can GL keep us posted.

 

[Kolton13]

Is there any kind of cichlids you recommend?? And I’d buy them as adults

 

[Stephen St.Clair]

Maybe try breeding uncommon Mbunas. Possibly more profit potential, they don't need as much space and easy to establish a breeding colony.
Some species that come to mind are Pseudotropheus Flavus, Metriaclima Zebra Chilumba & Cynotilapia Afra, just to name a few.

 

[ryang85]

I've sold a lot of peacocks on craigslist, youl get double or triple the money if you let your males color up completely when you sell them, the trick is so spread them out in as many tanks as possible. I use 20 gals and 3 tanks is perfect so that way you can get one or two dominant males per tank and those are where your profits come from. If not you should be able to make it work in a 75. If you use a lot of rocks and caves youl get more colored males since they can hide from each other.

Make sure you buy a breeding colony of good genetics. I've had luck with imperial tropical and snake river cichlids. OB peacocks are easiest to breed but they are one of the cheaper peacocks. Do your research and find something that has a lot of color since they sell faster. I personally like the blue blood dragons. But everyone has different preferences.

In order to breed your going to have to separate your breeding colony from the tank with the others. So if I were you I would set up the 75 for the mix of peacocks then use the 50 as a breeder tank. I use a 20 gal as a breeder. So anything works as long as you can separate them.
If you live where the weather is not to cold or hot you can buy cheep tubs and fill them with water and use a sponge filter as long as your parents have extra garage space.


Also you will flood the market pretty quickly with each breed. You need to kill( I put mine in the freezer) the small and ugly. If you try to sell 40 peacocks and 10 of them are small and ugly your going to end up with people thinking you have bad genetics or too many full size peacocks to deal with. I wait until they are about 2 inches then pick out the smallest 10.

 

[Longmayitreign]

Don't breed any hybrid species like dragon bloods or ob's, or any strain bred stuff like the German reds or turkis. The ob's and dragon bloods aren't worth as much and the strain bred stuff isn't usually worth as much either and can also have less demand. Try to look around your area on kijiji and in stores to see what species are around, then of course get something that isn't around (online) or isn't very common. If you are getting the males and the females from the same place you can only inbreed them two or three times (if they are f1). To save money only start with two or three females then use females from the first batch for breeding and keep the males and a few females from the first batch for backup in a different tank. If you ever consider breeding two species try Lwanda's because the females of some strains have bigger tails then other peacock females so you can grow out both species in the same tank.

 

[Longmayitreign]

Also I would swap the growout with the breeder and you could go with some rare or less common haps like spilonotus, z rocks, or iceberg fryeri.