convicts

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M

mfgl

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 5, 2009
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im thinking of breeding convicts for feeders, my question is after they breed and the fry are born, do I really need the parents anymore? breed them , get the babies feed the parents to my other fish, then wait for the fry to grow, feed them to my other fish as they grow and leave a few left over to breed again? Is there any reason to keep the parents around?
Also if i tried to breed them in a ten gallon tank and I put a beta in there would they kill it?
 
One reason to keep around the parents is that you would lose the effectiveness of the breeders. Sometimes it take a pair a couple-few tries to produce a batch. But if you have time, it probably wouldn't matter.

They would thrash that betta.
 
i don't recomend inbreeding regardless of the reason. for me I want quality food for my O's so I don't inbreed the mollies I feed to them.

keep the parents as pets in a planted tank and seperate out the feeders into growout tubs with adequate filtration. 50g tubs are 10$ at walmart and target. get 3 of them plus 3 hob filters and some clamp lights from home depot. stick them in your basement or garage and let them growout. (heaters are optional depending on your local climate, in AZ I don't need them)

this will setup a nice little feeding cycle without major breaks. if you feed the breeding pair to your other fish you will be creating a break in the feeding cycle as it will take a few months for the cons to grow from fry to breeding age. then you will have the wait the initial justation period and then start all over.
 
I think fish food, even market fish/shrimp would be alot cheaper and easyier then breeding convicts. You can find a sale usually on shrimp for about 4$ a LB. NO way can you breed convicts for 4$ a LB.
 
intial setup 50-100$, monthly food cost to feed them 2$,

monthly output of feeders 250-500.

that's with my mollies.

don't know how much they weigh but I know 250 is alot more than a pound. likely in the 3-5lbs range. and many months are higher than 250.

don't know abotu cons but a single female mollie can put out 300 fry per spawn, gestation is 6 weeks and I have 3 breeder females. survival rate for the mollie fry is pretty high in the 60-80% range on the above system. and I can supplement my oscars diet by feeding the mollies nutrients I want the oscars to have.

similar principle with convicts.
 
i agree with the cost effectiveness argument when it comes the breeding your own feeders. convicts are mass producers and do it on a consistant level, but by the time you remove the fry and raise them to size that is suitable as a meal, your invested way more than $1 for 10 goldfish. im speaking from experience.
 
and after reading the first thread i would like to answer your last ?..........yes. dude my convict pair was in my 55 with a 7" largemouth bass and i had to remove them before i came home to a bass on the floor. dude they are some mean little fish. try to put your hand in the tank to remove the fry and come back and post a reply with what happened!! beta.....no.

sorry i rambled on!!
 
hotsauce;3346370; said:
dude put the betta in and please record video for us.
Click to expand...

nobody wants to see a video of a betta getting destroyed by the cons....that's an uneccesary way to kill off a fish
 
i included that post to really discourage it from taking place. read the post before that one....
 
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