I have my first wigglers! :D

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K

Keeper of the Ropes

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 29, 2006
803
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Texas
After an egg thief robbed my new little mama of her last brood before they hatched, I've had a bit more luck :) She lost quite a bit of eggs a day before they were supposed to hatch, so I removed all the other fish (including daddy fish because she didn't want him near the eggs either) and let her be. They hatched today and I have sixteen baby wigglers :) It's so exciting. I've never had a fish lay eggs before, let alone have them hatch. Now I have to go dig around and find my bs hatchery :) YAY!!

**edited to add... I forgot to tell ya, they're black convicts lol
 
Um... they aren't wiggling anymore. They aren't doing anything... just laying completely motionless in the corner of the tank. Is this normal???
 
Is there any sign of gill movement on them. I've had some batches settle into the corner and wait out the remaining yolk sack before getting active. At the moment i'm getting batches about ever nine days out of my big male and his harem of three females and lord knows how many i'll be getting out of the 40 with one really ugly male and seven females. He wasn't supposed to be in there but i needed to put him somewhere other than in the T gar so thats his new temporary home. I"m hoping to get some size on the females before breeding them regularly. Looks odd when my male is five inches long and the female is three inches shorter than him.

Good luck with the little fellows and dont worry if you loose this batch there will be more, they are like breeding mice....one plus one and time gives many babies.
 
Well first they weren't wiggling. Now they are completely gone (I have a bare tank except the rock she laid the eggs on - it's easy to check) and she's the only one in there. I guess she isn't the great mama I initially thought she was. Next time she lays I'll take them when they hatch... and I have two other females who may do better.
 
Sometimes it takes a few tries for the pair bond to hold and the urge to eat the young to pass. Its not usually the females fault. I try to keep the pair together and put something in there to focus aggression on and that seems to help cement the pair bond a little more.

I hope this helps some.

jason
 
Jason said:
Sometimes it takes a few tries for the pair bond to hold and the urge to eat the young to pass. Its not usually the females fault. I try to keep the pair together and put something in there to focus aggression on and that seems to help cement the pair bond a little more.


what do u put in there to focus their aggression on? will a pleco work?
Click to expand...
 
They laid the eggs again and I stole the rock... hatched them in a 10 gallon alone and now I have 100+ wigglers :D
 
Sorry i missed the other question.

Glad to hear you have babies, i should start doing that when my striped pair spawn next time.

I have a chance to pick up a boat load of cheap females at a LFS i might go grab them and start feeder farming since i can rotate males and give the females more than enough down time.

Anyhow to focus aggression in my convicts anything will work. I try not to use something that might be able to sneak past them at night and get the eggs. So i avoid catfish and plecos. In my display tank its the catfish that eventually get the free swimmers at night....or the midas and jag rush the parents together during the day.

I'd recomend something mid to top water, cheap and fast. giant danio come to mind but rainbowfish or silver dollars might work. Silver dollars might get beat up though depending on the size of the cons and the tank.

Sometimes if you have one of the transparent tank dividers you can put another pair on the other side and they'll spend a good deal of time trying to kill each other through the divider and that has helped a couple pairs do well for me (in a ten gallon actually, they werent supposed to breed during the quarentine period...but hell i'm not going to argue with them).

Hope this helps somewhat

Jason

PS some people use a mirror on the end of the tank. i've done it but i've had mixed results with my smaller cichlids. My curviceps pair was never the same after a mirror, they'd always turn on each other and eat the eggs, might just have been them though. Convicts breed like mice so i think it might pass with them.
 
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