The convict, the viscous little beast.

I've raised, cross bred, and hybrid these little critters. They are Central American fish, and highly aggressive, size doesn't matter to them. A little black and white zebra striped cichlid, they only get about 7" max, most of them I have seen are only 4-5" full grown. Males and female are easy to tell, males get bigger, females smaller. Males also have a noticable hump on thier forehead. The female will also get a orange belly when she is ready to breed, this is most of the time. Drop a male and female in a tank and you'll get a batch of fry 99% of the time. A huge batch as well. They will also breed quickly batch after batch. (to males may fight because they want to breed with each other)

Never house other fish with a breeding pair. Even a divider is risky, our pair would attack the divider and tore thier mouths up trying to get to the other fish. They spawn easily, prefer flat surfaces, like the inside of a plant pot used as a cave. They are excellent parents and will defend thier young even if it costs them thier lives.

They are destructive, will eat your plants, un root them, knock over rocks, decorations, and claim caves as breeding grounds. Even though they are small you better put them in with other aggressive fish, I had a 1" convict that would run out bite a 9" tex and then run back and hide, and do it over and over and over.

Tank temp 70-80 degrees, I prefer low 70's for these guys. They can tolerate "over" seasoned water, I'd house with larger fish and feed some kind "veggie" (planton/algae wafers) mixed or seperate from there food, as most Central American fish they are omnivores.

(Oh no I got a leak!)Some tips, be careful if you move them from tank to tank. If you move a set with fry to another tank (in case of a leak or some emergency) move the fry first. If you put mom and dad in first they may breed in there new home (they may breed in the tank while you are moving the fry), then the pregnant mom can "misscarriage" which may kill her from confusion whether to care for the fry she has or lay her new batch. I've seen this happen twice. One time the parents where moved and half an hour later the fry was moved and the female died bloated with eggs. The best you can hope for is for mom to lay eggs and then eat the other fry (if you dont' remove them) if they breed during the move.

If housed together and never moved, the parents will let the first batch of fry get so big (about an 1/8th of an inch if that) and then breed again, in which case you remove the first batch and all will be fine. If you leave the first batch in mom and dad may kill them. Though I've seen three batches in one tank with no casualities before, but I don't know if I personally would trust that situation. They are very good parents, and take great care of there young. (They may attack your net, or hand if you put either in the tank while they have fry.)

Besides being ultra breeders, great parents, very aggressive plant kills, they are also hardy. The convict can handle it if your power goes out and your tank drops below 70, our power went out in the winter and they survived at 55 degrees for a whole day with no problems, or airation. They can handle old water, and are rather tough fish. I've never had one get a case of ick, velvet, or any disease (I have seen them at pet stores with ick though)

Convicts also come in varieties. There are "pink" convicts that have stripes and are pink, I have seen white albino convicts, blue convicts which I've heard are actually different, but closely related specie (not really blue but almost black with blueish fins), solid black convicts, and I have seen an orange female that some one line bred for orange pigmentation. And of course there are all kinds of cross bred and hybrid convict specie because they breed so quickly, effectively, and in such large numbers.

i sold my entire group of cons. Fry and parents. 50 bucks for them. (40 2 inch fry and 2 parents)

We flooded the market here so bad we couldn't get anyone to buy them. Sadly our female passed, and we sold the male(Blue Con). We though we sold all there cross bred fry, but one tiny guy is still in our tank, he is about an inch now, but he hid when we sold his brothers and sisters so he have one cross bred little guy left.

It was funny because some of our crosses grew ultra fast, bigger than there parents in three months, others where stunted, our litle guy is about four months now if not older and still only an inch. Must of been something genetic, line bred (er umm if you inbreed to line breed) will do that.

the cons i used to have were slow grower. it took them 6 months for them to get to an inch and a half...maybe because they were in a 20g. haha.

Ortamenxs if i remember correctly you were the first person that helped me with my convicts!

Loved reading your post ortamenxs !

I also have raised cons.
My children love them,they always have fry for them to see.
They never fail to have fry for company to see and take home free.

And produce fry for live food for other "project fish".(saving me money)

I find they are extremely hard to catch once free swimming.(without squishing)

We flooded the market here so bad we couldn't get anyone to buy them.

Its the same here in Australia, we can't even give them away.Nobody wants them.

Breninoz

Quote :

We flooded the market here so bad we couldn't get anyone to buy them.

Its the same here in Australia, we can't even give them away.Nobody wants them.

I laughed hard at this statement....

Same story everywhere I think......LOL

Convicts are like ants. haha

I was tinking that the convict is more like a Rabbit !

How do you get convicts to breed? You add water.

Im currently raising convicts, surprisingly enough there pretty mellow and mine grew EXTREMLY FAST. Ive already had 4 batches of fry (3 dif pairs of parents) and this last batch consisted oddly enough of 8 FALSE albinos....or PINK convits...didnt know that the black zebra parents could do that. But im stoked, i wanted pink ones, i have about 28 or so convicts (a few other random fish) divided amongst 2 100 gallon tanks ( eventually ill order a custom 500 ) but for now thats suitable
If anyone in the SAN DIEGO area wants convicts, and u have a stable tank you can have them for free.

Many people I know will use the con fry as feeders to other cichlids, you are what you eat literally in this case.