what you will need.
a seperate tank, (depending of the fish you are attempting to breed) fish around the region of 6 - 7" fully grown will require a 20 gallon tank for fry.

an air operated pump. these can be bought cheaply and are esential for a fry tank

food - food for fry comes in many shapes and forms such as "liquifry", baby powdered food and of course live foods.


1. the first thing you will obviusly need are a pair of whatever fish you are attempting to breed, some cichlids like convicts will easly pair up with the minimum of effort required whereas others such as discus will require to be purchased in numbers when you ng and brought up to maturity, and with a little luck will pair up.
2. after youv got your pair of fish you will need a tank appropriate for them to lay there eggs into, leave clay pots, plants and wood at angles againts the sides of your tank etc. now the best way to encourage your fish to breed is to alter the temp a little, another is to do large frequent water changes and to feed frozen or live foods. now. what you may find is that the perents will become darker in colour or the colours may change in someway, in cichlids especially the male may "dance" and flare around the female and the male may begin to dig pits around his territory, this may continue for sometime, also you may witness the perent may begin to clean a selected area, either that be a rock, surface of pumps and filters etc, a sure sign that your fish are about to lay.
3. when your fish have laid, their eggs get your fry tank up and running but use old tank water and used filter media. leave your fish do the buisness of caring and fanning them, and leave them until the hatch, one the eggs hatch start putting 1 drop per gallon of liquifry into the fry tank 2 tmes a day to encourage infurshnia growth which the fry will eat, now after about a week (depending on the species of cichlid) the fry will become free swimming, at this stage syphen about 70 - 80 % of the fry out of the tank, ( removing them all may seperate the pair of fish from a breeding pair) now place them into the fry tank with the sponge filter and a temp of about low 80s nwo feed the fry liquifry 2 times a day and small amounts of baby brine shrimp twice a day for the first few weeks, at about 2 months old the fry will be able to accept crushed flake food along with their diet,
4. clean the tank daily and replace 10% of the water. when their size increases you can add a small filter in the tank. you may also want to include small plants into the tank for security and when larger small shrimp to clean up the bottom of the tank, sooner or later you can sell your baby fish to the general public of back to your local fish shop, or if your selling flyer cichlids you can charge ?10 per fish and rip off the member "SABOY" shhhh

hope any of this helps>
Dany

Excellent Dany. Should help out people that want to try out breeding some American Cichlids.

thanks!