How difficult is it to breed Frontosa?

[killerknight_69]

I wanted to buy some frontosa Cichlids and try breeding them once they are sexually mature. I know they are a colony breeder Cichlid. I especially like the black widow frontosa but the blue laser and Moba are nice too. My question is: how difficult is it to get them to breed? How large do they need to be to reach sexual maturity? And how fast do they grow?

 

[punman]

Mine were breeding with the male at 6 inches and the females at 4 inches but I do not know their ages. It was just a couple months after I received them. They grew quite quickly within the following year but I found it takes a while to get the fry from newborn to three inches.

 

[killerknight_69]

At what size did you receive them? I am also wondering how long they take to reach sexual maturity from 2" because purchasing them at 5"+ they are very expensive

 

[Ash]

I used to breed a colony of Kigomas. I started off with 20 2-3” fish. It took about 2 1/2 years to get them to breeding size and 3 years before I had my first fry. A few males were 7-8 inches while my females were 4-6 inches. As they grew I started to weed out and sell off the males. I had a colony of 12 until they started pushing the 10-12” range then I did another round of weeding out. A colony of 8-10 with a few males and mostly females was good for my tank size of 150gal. Water quality, lighting and rock work (along with the types of rock) can make a difference as well. A nice larger flat rock did wonders for mine.