Convict Question

[Gooner]

I have what I think is a pair (Male and Female) of Black Convicts. I have had them for around two months now and the smaller of the pair lays eggs roughly every two weeks, however, they never get to the stage of hatching, they are all eaten within three to four days of being layed. I`m on the fith batch of eggs today and looked this morning and there is only about half of what were layed last Thursday.

The bizarre question

Could they be both females? My doubts are, If they are both females could they still lay eggs?

Cheers,

Gooner.

 

[ox5477]

The female will lay eggs if conditions are right. single females that have never been with a male will lay eggs on occassion if conditions are right and she is at maturity.

For sexing, do both fish have orangish bellies? if yes, then they are both females. fem cons have this orange belly while males don't. post pics if you can too.

If it is a male and female, the male may not be at maturity so can not fertilize the females eggs. If this is the case, then the fish will eat the eggs as they know that they will not develop and so will regain the energy from the eggs. They will also do this to weed out bad or un-fertilized eggs when a good batch is layed.

 

[Gooner]

Thanks ox5477,

Unfortunately cannot get any photo`s at the moment. The smaller of the two has definately got an orange tinge on the underside but cannot see any sign on the larger one. Not sure if it helps but they both have a small white tube protruding from the belly, could this be egg laying tubes ruling out a male? The larger one is very dominant and keeps harrasing the smaller one which has resulted in quite bad fin damage (another problem I will have to deal with). If it`s of any use the large one is approx 3" and the small 2".

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Thanks ox5477,

Unfortunately cannot get any photo`s at the moment. The smaller of the two has definately got an orange tinge on the underside but cannot see any sign on the larger one. Not sure if it helps but they both have a small white tube protruding from the belly, could this be egg laying tubes ruling out a male? The larger one is very dominant and keeps harrasing the smaller one which has resulted in quite bad fin damage (another problem I will have to deal with). If it`s of any use the large one is approx 3" and the small 2".

My guess is that they are both female, if they do have that egg laying organ sticking out from underneath. Males also have one, but they are smaller and harder to see (Obviously not an egg laying organ though .)

 

[Gooner]

All of the eggs are gone this morning and they are both swimming around normally, now that they are out and about (Out of their cave) it might be easier to get a couple of photo`s so i`ll post them later.

Cheers.

 

[Hobbit]

maybe the bigger one is the one laying eggs, and thats why its harrassing the little one

 

[Gooner]

That could be a possibility, however, I have had to return the small Con to the Lfs because she was in such a state, fins all torn to the point she could not swim properly.

Still unable to get decent pics of the larger one to confirm if its a "him" or "her", "she", "female", "lady", "miss" or watever they are called.

If it is a "her", is it possible she would lay another batch of eggs to confirm the sex? Will she continue to lay eggs being the only Con in the tank?

 

[chameleon62]

Hi, if you have a spear tank take the eggs away put them in it with a bubbler to one side of them, if they are fertile they will hatch, if not you have two females.

 

[steve2000]

The female will lay eggs if conditions are right. single females that have never been with a male will lay eggs on occassion if conditions are right and she is at maturity.

For sexing, do both fish have orangish bellies? if yes, then they are both females. fem cons have this orange belly while males don't. post pics if you can too.

If it is a male and female, the male may not be at maturity so can not fertilize the females eggs. If this is the case, then the fish will eat the eggs as they know that they will not develop and so will regain the energy from the eggs. They will also do this to weed out bad or un-fertilized eggs when a good batch is layed.

Hi are you sure that males dont get orange bellies. I had 8 juvenile marbled convicts in a tank.
I came down to find about 100 fry swimming with a pair of convicts and the rest just huddled up into one corner of the tank.
I removed all the other fish just leaving the pair and their fry.the fry all grew up and left the tank.So i now have just the pair left, both have orange bellies, but they have not produced any more fry. So if you are correct i had 2 females sharing the raising duties to a batch of fry. Is that possible ???

 

[chameleon62]

Im only going on what I have seen, so I may be wrong, it’s just the ones I have had the males never had orange bellies only the female but yours have been breeding so you must have a male and a female. Any thing is possible I read about a guy that had a red devil only one he came home and found fry swimming in his tank, no one believed him so he watched it with the next lot, it did everything like normal but then it fertilized the eggs as well so like I said anything is possible.