The myth of pairs

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GS1981

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jun 26, 2012
466
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England
I always read that to get pairs you need to start with 5 juvi unrelated Fish of the same species and let them pair naturally, in my experience, i dump a male and a female of breeding age together and i have eggs inside a week or 2.

I have done this over the years with the following..

Severums....red spotted, gold, turqs, greens, rotkeil, notatus
Angel fish
Convicts (everyone knows this)
Blood Parrots
Flowerhorns
Texas
Yellow Labs
Firemouths
Green Terrors
Blue Acaras (hybrids of Latifrons and Pulchers also)
Socolofi
Zebras
Kribensis
Jewels
Salvini
Red Devils

My Severums were the easiest...

I put a 7" female with a 7" male.....eggs inside a week, there breeding became non stop and the other fish in the tank were getting battered so i sold the female and bought what i thought was another 7" gold male because it had the worm lines on the cheeks like all male Severums except for Severus have....but they were very feint, i had this new Severum 3 days and bang! 1000's of eggs again and the same problem, i got rid of the latest female and got a large Thorichthys of some sort to replace it, the male Sev is still guarding his eggs tho.

SO anyway, its really not that hard to breed most cichlids.
 
Your right its not luck. All creatures were made to reproduce. So yeah if you put a male and female in together that are sexually mature, you will most likely have eggs:) I believe the theory of the group idea and letting form naturally just sounds good and its better to buy a group of them if theyre small instead of just two only to find out they're same sex. And imo fish that pair out at small sizes are too immature to sustain a long-term status with any fish. Which is why most of the bonds are broken early on. I think its of the idea that if they can form naturally then it will be a long term bond. And of course with some species that may be so. But I really dont think any fish actually pair for life, so we as hobbiests shouldn't get too upset when our pairs break.... Just my .02
 
I think the myth is that people have this idea all breeding cichlids form these life long bonds in the wild all the time... From friends I have that have gone down and observed these fish, that seems to be false with a lot of them. A lot of spawns are unsuccessful and the fish just go their separate ways. In a tank this is not an option, and you can run in to trouble.
What you're talking about in an aquarium is known as "forced pairing" where they don't have a choice of a mate. I have seen this work well and long term sometimes... There are lots of techniques to breed cichlids out there. I have friends that have very quickly given up on proven pairs if they get aggressive with each other and get frustrated and get rid of the fish, like it's some kind of failure on their part as a fishkeeper, when I know they're great fishkeepers and have done everything "by the book."
I think we would all love pairs that form a peaceful lifelong bond and breed without issue, but obviously that doesn't always happen. So we are faced with decisions frequently... I'm sure Jason has had to divide many a festae pair for a week or two. :)


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I always read that to get pairs you need to start with 5 juvi unrelated Fish of the same species and let them pair naturally......
Click to expand...

I believe that what you are always reading, pertains to those who are buying juvenile fish & growing them out. Not everyone has access to sexually mature specimens, and of course the larger they are the more they cost - especially with many of the SA/CA species where the difference between a young unsexed juvie, and a sexually mature adult can be a fair chunk of change. I don't think that anyone is saying that one must grow out juvenile fish together in order to get a breeding pair.
 
You're not supposed to get 5 fish because a male and female won't pair up and breed otherwise.

It's suggested, with juveniles, to get 5 fish if you want to make sure you will end up with at east one pair for breeding. Because if you get 5 you're liable to end up with at least one compatible male and female out of a group that is too young to adequately sex.

I dunno who says you MUST get 5 fish because otherwise they won't form a pair; that's completely wrong for the majority of SA cichlids. And in fact if you don't want to stunt your fish, it's best not to introduce males and females until completely mature, since pairs that spawn ASAP generally don't grow as large. Which is why you see a ton of little tiny convicts.
 
I always read Severums take careful planning to breed yet mine breed with any given female from any species from the heros complex, infact someone i know from fishforums 'star4' bread a 'sevict' a rotkeil x convict, people never believe it but its there if you can be bothered to go see it at that forum, the forum is pretty crap compared to here tho.

I have a baby Rotkeil x Notatus in my tank right now taht i bred by accident and my male red spot is guarding 1000's of eggs that my female gold layed within 3 days of being introduced to him, shes been sold now.

I also read that males will fight to the death, i have 4 adult males in my 75g (notatus, rotkeil, red spot, gold) with a adult male festivum, some type of 5" firemouth, a pair of Angels and a load of barbs as dithers, tank is cramped, but i do big waterchanges and theres no agression whatsoever.
 
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