Convict Cichlid Breeding Questions...

[PDX]

I finally got round to picking up my breeding pair of convict cichlids this past weekend and now I have a few questions concerning them.

1. The female is now rather fat, her egg tube is out and she has a lovely irredentist orange tinge to a lot of her body but what I am worried about is where she will lay as the only thing I have that looked suitable is an aquarium ornament that looks like broken pipes for the fish to swim through which is uneven inside, the question is will she lay her eggs in it?
2. When/if the fry hatch as I understand the fish may eat the eggs if they are inexperienced or stressed when should I first feed them and what should I feed them, the main thing I have read is baby brine shrimp but I’m not sure about hatching them etc. and they are not readily available in my area I would have to order them from the internet, so is there anything easy to prepare that I could possibly feed them?
3. And the third and final question, once I have fry how long should they be kept with the parents? I understand that the parents may get bored of them after a while and that there is a chance they may eat the fry so when should I separate them?

Thanx in advance for your answers

PDX

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

She will lay eggs pretty much anywhere in my experience, my pair used to lay them on the glass even though I provided them with pots and caves.

You could feed the fry once they are free swimming on microworms if you can get them, my LFS also sells frozen baby brine shrimp, failing that you could crush up flake food very fine and feed them that.

I seperated the fry from the parents at about 3 weeks old, within a week of seperating them though the pair would have another batch of eggs. I left a batch with the parents once and surely after about a 1-2 months they killed them all off slowly. biggest first.

Hope that helps!

 

[BigIan]

QSS on wakefield road has brine shrimp in, every time i`ve been down there over the past 2-3 weeks they`ve had loads of it, so you could give them a try, and my understanding is if you airiate the water brine shrimp will breed in almost any conditions, also there is is post about it some where on this forum if you use the search function

 

[PDX]

QSS on wakefield road has brine shrimp in, every time i`ve been down there over the past 2-3 weeks they`ve had loads of it, so you could give them a try, and my understanding is if you airiate the water brine shrimp will breed in almost any conditions, also there is is post about it some where on this forum if you use the search function

Hi Ian do they actually sell baby brine shrimp or is it the standard artemia brine shrimp? If it's the latter then they are too big for the fry to eat...

 

[BigIan]

its the standard one, but my understanding is that if you set up a breeding tank for the shrimp (possible in a bucket) then theese would be the best way to start a colony...

 

[PDX]

She will lay eggs pretty much anywhere in my experience, my pair used to lay them on the glass even though I provided them with pots and caves.

You could feed the fry once they are free swimming on microworms if you can get them, my LFS also sells frozen baby brine shrimp, failing that you could crush up flake food very fine and feed them that.

I seperated the fry from the parents at about 3 weeks old, within a week of seperating them though the pair would have another batch of eggs. I left a batch with the parents once and surely after about a 1-2 months they killed them all off slowly. biggest first.

Hope that helps!

its the standard one, but my understanding is that if you set up a breeding tank for the shrimp (possible in a bucket) then theese would be the best way to start a colony...

Many thanks for both your help.