Was wondering, thinking of stocking my 120 with cons to watch their breeding behaviour. It worried me a bit though that they set up what was described as "large" territories. This brings me to wonder what exactly that means and how many pairs I would be able to safely keep in an aquarium 5 feet long?
Convicts
- Thread starter Ketamine
- Start date
well wat that means is you should have lots of visual boundaries..such as rocks, driftwood, plants, caves....things that would make it hard for them to see...as for large boundaries..many cichlids clame territories, even the smaller ones so for every pair i would do at least 2 or 3 caves to that pair....i would only have at least 2 maybe 3 pairs in the tank...just start off with like 10 babies, and let them pair up on there own..
120 Gallons is a LOT of area for these guys. You should have no problem keeping a fair sized group in such a set up. Especially if you aquascape upward as well as across, ( meaning providing a good base of rockwork for territories and hiding spaces. ) As a rule Cichlids are all greedy to some extent. Whether it's territorial, breeding, or food greed the trait is there. Will convicts set up huge territories? If given a chance yes. What cichlid would not. But the spacing is determined not only by size and dominance of the breeding pair but also by the available space, the visual breaks in the habitat ( Rockwork that hides fish from easy view of eachother ) and of course the competition for space. If you take twelve pairs of convicts that are all the same size and place them in a 120 gallon with a good layout, you will have 24 breeding fish who will squabble but will accept that they MUST stay in their territory to avoid take-overs by neighboring pairs. Another technique popular with some European hobbists when trying to breed cichlids who pairbond and raise the fry is to have an odd fish out that is a different species. This fish is called an "agitator".
The premise of the "agitator" method is that by keeping ( for example ) three pairs of large aggressive breeders with a larger tough fish of a different species, it focus's the defenders on keeping the agitator away from the spawn and difuses energy spent on other pairs or the potential of consuming their own fry out of bordom, nervousness, or whatever other causes. The agitator needs to be a bigger and fairly tough species to survive the abuse of cruising over the territories of protective parents. It may eat the odd fry now and then, but generally agitators are good at keeping cichlids focused on parenting and not on territorial disputes or other pairs of their own species.
Best of luck to you. Oh and BTW Convicts will breed like mad! They are good parents and spawns grow in number as the parents get larger and more mature. Something to bear in mind when trying to decide how many to place in your tank. It's not a matter of IF, they will breed, only WHEN! The more you keep the greater a baby factory you will have on your hand. Take care.
- Erik -
The premise of the "agitator" method is that by keeping ( for example ) three pairs of large aggressive breeders with a larger tough fish of a different species, it focus's the defenders on keeping the agitator away from the spawn and difuses energy spent on other pairs or the potential of consuming their own fry out of bordom, nervousness, or whatever other causes. The agitator needs to be a bigger and fairly tough species to survive the abuse of cruising over the territories of protective parents. It may eat the odd fry now and then, but generally agitators are good at keeping cichlids focused on parenting and not on territorial disputes or other pairs of their own species.
Best of luck to you. Oh and BTW Convicts will breed like mad! They are good parents and spawns grow in number as the parents get larger and more mature. Something to bear in mind when trying to decide how many to place in your tank. It's not a matter of IF, they will breed, only WHEN! The more you keep the greater a baby factory you will have on your hand. Take care.
- Erik -
no offendse what so over.....but for a couple pair of con a 55 would be a good size.a 120 would seem like a pond for those things.I would go for something like buttikoferi frontosa or maybe a single adult dovii.
I wouldn't mind a 120 full of convicts. But to tell the truth I would go for honduran red points over convicts in a 120, less aggression and more beautiful.
evilxyardxgnome;628681; said:
great point......the red points look a lot like convicts but have a lot of blue in them....there is a whole article about them in the July 2006 edition of TFH..........or you could even have some close relatives of convicts like sajicas.........
I was reading in an old magazine that in the wild, Convicts will take up 3 square feet of territory. I'd say you can probably get away with 3 pairs providing you have enough hiding spots and decor so they can mark their territoty.
dougefresh;628708; said:
Yea and plus Sajica get beautiful in breeding mode. I have that issue of TFH, I wrote my finaly paper in my College Comp class on the general history and breeding information on the cryptoheros species, while mainly focusing on convicts.