convict questions

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jloos1988

jloos1988

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 15, 2006
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canton, MI
my female just laid her eggs on the side of the flower pot so im happy :). are the parents life partners that will continually breed the rest of their lives? when the babies hatch, how long do i wait to throw some first bites in the tank?
 
The only reason theyd part would be the addition of new cons who were more compatible (as happened to me) or if your male outgrows and eventually kills the female.
 
When My cons have fry I feed crushed or minced flake food :)

They will breed till they cannot :) They could change partners though :)
 
Chances are that cons breed every 2 weeks like clockwork. The female has to produce so many eggs, that she is in theory, stunting. The male quickly grows bigger and IF he decides to have a mean streak, he can kill her. Although not likely if paired young. The eggs take 3 days to hatch. After the 3 days, they hatch and go into thier wiggler form, consuming thier yolk sac. After 3-5 days they will become free swimming and can eat foods as big as finely crushed flakes, but will fare much better on baby brine shrimp, first bites, cyclops, daphina etc. When they gain some size, your instincts will tell you when to feed bigger foods. Eg, flakes.

Oh, and about breeding the rest of thier lives, think of it as a human being started to have kids at 13, and doesnt stop (Has kids every 9-10 months like clockwork) untill she reaches menopause. Thats what its like for female cons.
 
Just something I've noticed that may also come in handy is that you dont really need to feed the fry after they become free swimming for the first week or two anyways. Mine are all fed away by then but up until that point I dont waste food on them. I assume they must eat something in the tank, probably microorganisms, but who knows.
 
Not feeding for the first week will cause a MASSIVE die off of fry. I only didnt feed my 5th batch of cons for the first 2 weeks because I was doing tests to see how they fared (Of course I knew most would die) and to see if they attempted to eat some algae and microorganisms in the plants.
My studies showed that the parents laid about 350 eggs, and all hatched. After about 3 days of free swimming, not eating, I noticed there was about 170 fry left. After the 5th day there was about 40. After the 9 day, there was 15. Now, these fry actually lived.

I fed 8 to my other fish and kept the remaining 7. The 7 fry are now about 1.25" long and howmany weeks old. 8 or something, maybe more. No kidding, but this was my first successful batch of fry to live over 2 weeks. Of course I couldnt of done this without having the tank right near a window and recieving lots of natural sun to fuel the rapid, constant growth of algae for the fry. (I also did have 3 large Bristlenose plecs in there aswell).
 
Convicts seem to be monagamous,unlike Africans,monagamous meaning one female,one male.Not one male 3+ females.And you can throw first bites(good product for rearing fry)in after a week.Soak it first.
 
Hmm, my current con fry are doing fine 4 days in but I'll keep my eyes out since I have far more fry this time than last and they'll probably last longer :evil: Wouldn't be too difficult to feed them I suppose. I thought the parents also fed them to some extent, don't you take your cons out at the egg stage mystix? That might be why I have a different experience than you.
 
The way I breed mine is I fill the tank up with plants,then once the fry hatch I let them feed off of their yolk sac for 5 days. Then I feed them Baby brine Shrimp and frozen foods.
 
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