URGENT HELP WITH CONVICTS!!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I

Irondale

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 9, 2010
160
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0
North Metro, Minnesota
www.big-finz.webs.com
My convicts have had fry for about a week now. The past three days they have been swimming, and the parents are sabotaging my 75GAL tank. The question is how old do they have to be before I can seperate them from their parents. If I did that they would start breeding again and be more focused on that then :WHOA:ing up my tank.
 
You really dont want breeding convicts in a community setting. Even if you seperated the fry now, In another week or 2 you will be in the same boat you are now. Id suggest giving away the female and keeping the male because he wont get nearly as aggressive if he has no babies.
 
^ agreed....in a 75 gallon tank, a breeding pair of cons with free swimming fry will claim about half the tank, and as the fry cloud moves around, so will the territory. Definitely not the best idea to have them breeding in a community setting because this will just keep happening over and over.

:)
 
Good, I remove my fry and the cons just do it again, over and over. I have to sell some on kijiji.
 
Removing the fry won't necessarily make the aggression or territorial behavior stop. My severums went on a rampage when I siphoned their fry out of the tank and looked for them for a full day, chasing and attacking all my other fish.

You can remove fry from the moment they're free-swimming. If you're not too worried about raising them, you can even pull the eggs/wrigglers. You don't have to wait until the free-swimming stage.
 
Irondale;4392913; said:
The idea was that everytime it happened to just remove the fry. They would never get the chance to defend them hence they wouldn't be affecting the tank so much. Still waiting on that other answer. Thanks for the info guys, just had something else in mind.
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Removing the fry will not help, once a female con has spawned she becomes extremely territorial (not to mention overly aggressive) and will continue to reek havoc on your tank.
 
FishingOut;4392695; said:
You really dont want breeding convicts in a community setting. Even if you seperated the fry now, In another week or 2 you will be in the same boat you are now. Id suggest giving away the female and keeping the male because he wont get nearly as aggressive if he has no babies.
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Yeah I would get rid of the female as well, it will calm the male down and in my experience female cons are much more aggressive than the males are. If you do remove the female, the male may sulk and sit on the bottom of the tank for a few days but will eventually get over it.

Another option I would suggest is getting another tank between 20-29 gallons and keep them by themselves as a breeding pair.
 
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