It's Been A While

kribensis12

I know where you live
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So, some of the newer members on here may not remember me, I all but left the forum after selling all of my fish possessions in June (my usage has died down for other reasons as well), as I am in college now. Well as fate would have it, I have fish again. The maximum size we can have is 10g, so I picked one up at walmart. Bought a heater, bought some gravel, picked up some plastic plants off amazon.com, and went on a search for cichlids. To minimize over stocking, I bought 2 convicts. I know what you are thinking, they get big. I have noticed and I'm sure many other breeders here have noticed that when fish are breeding they do not grow at all and if they do, it's nominal. So, buying 2 and letting them breed, eventually eat their babies, and then breed again seems to be a pretty self sufficient ecosystem. I purchased a black female, and a pink male. They are currently about to lay eggs (of course). So I have a video for you guys to see if you are interested. Here is the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68974782@N06/6301556714/in/photostream


If anyone is interested on a update as far as how long the fry last, how they look, ect. I'd be more than happy to update this post. I am also considering selling the parents and keeping a few fry and growing them up, but I have not decided on that. I've always wanted a Calico Convict.

BTW, for you techies, this was recorded with an iPhone 4 S, so if you were curious what the 1080p HD video looked like when it comes to fish, that's it. I wish I had the tank off the ground so I could make the camera more steady.
 
Well, I've never bread fish before, but I have heard more stories of people ending up with too many convict cichlids to deal with than stories of them eating their young.

I mean. Unless your plan is to not feed them anything but a diet of their own babies. Which seems kinda screwed up.

I don't know anything about the growth stunting from breeding or anything, but I find your plan to be a little strange.

and if you do end up selling the breeding pair and keeping calicos instead, will those breed in order to keep the growth down by your theory?
 
The reason why people end up with so many babies is because they want to rear them and are surprised that so many make it. I am feeding them a normal flake diet, but unless the local petshop here wants the babies, I can't do anything with them. The parents will naturally eat them after a certain time frame because in the wild, the babies should have swam away by then. I have breed many kinds of fish over the years and have seem that breeding does indeed stunt their growth. Not in a unhealthy way though. They are just too preoccupied with breeding to devote resources for anything else.

Thanks, ZoddyZod
 
They did lay eggs today. The females looks wonderful and the male is mindlessly swimming around the tank with nothing to do. I will have pictures up soon.
 
Here is a picture of the mother guarding the eggs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68974782@N06/6312657133/

Here is just a picture of the eggs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68974782@N06/6313178188/
 
They are already hatching. As soon as they are free swimming (or there is a good photo opportunity) I will have some pictures up.
 
Mate, 10g is cruel, they will still grow, i have a female pink convict that has bred about 20 times with an old black male i had until i got rid of him, I got that pink con at 1" and she is now 4"+ about fully grown for a female.

They will not eat the babys, they will attack them and chase them around, but they wont eat them, they never have whenever i have let them grow, usually i syphon the fry out with the water change and chuck them down the toilet.

What your doing is very amateur and wrong, with 7000 posts on this forum you know alot better than this.
 
The intent is slow their growth by their breeding. I am not keeping them past this may due to going home from college. I will give them back to the local fish store if they are willing to take them. I told the LFS that if they want the babies, I am more than willing to drop them off free of charge (they are convicts, they wont pay for them). If I for one second think that they parents are just bulling the fry, believe me, I will take corrective measures. I have been keeping fish since I was 4, and I would not want to see them go through anything like that. The entire intent of this is to keeping fish that are semi-interesting in a 10g. I looked into mollies, platies ect. and the ones around here look like crap. I can't afford to pay 20+ dollars on shipping. I've bred many fish; convicts, kribensis, yellow labs (the list goes on) and they have always eaten their babies if let to it. Do not misunderstand me nor my intentions. I would gladly accept a more suitable fish, such as a small apisto species but until that becomes available I am keeping the convicts. I would not consider this amatuerish. If this were to be done by an amateur, the fish would not have weekly water changes, they would not have a clean tank, they wouldn't have even started in a cycled tank, and the person keeping them would have no regard to the well being of the fish.
 
Keeping a pair of potential 6" fish in a 10g tank is amateurish.

They will not eat the babys, I have a breeding colony of Labs i keep finning out myself, i have fry from 10 batchs ago swimming about, the adult male i have could fit 4 in his mouth at one time and he don't go near them.

You will be ove ran by May with 100+ tiny convicts squashed in that tank, and because these fish will survive in a puddle if they could, they will still be alive and suffering.

You will also be stunting the adults growth in that amount of time, and there organs will continue to grow.....you know the rest.

If you have been keeping fish since you was 4, and you have 7700 posts on this forum, you know better.

Honestly, is there anybody here that believes it is ok what this guy is doing?
 
If I were to keep a pair in a tank for say, 4 years then that would be understandable. But what, 6 months? Nope. You misunderstand me entirely. The entire premise is that they do nor grow quickly, and in my experience, some times at all while breeding. Therefore, for 6 months, even if they did max out another inch in this tank; they would still be under the golden rule (even better so that they are a mated pair). That makes that part of your argument null and void. I understand where you are coming from, but it's not applicable for a 6 month time period. We have covered this next part previously, but I will explain once again. If I have an opportunity to, I will gladly give the fry away. Right now, the LFS isn't interested but they might be in a month. In MY experience (maybe not in yours), they do eat their babies. I am also not opposed to flushing them if that becomes something that has to be taken care of. I also have other people who might be interested in a few fry, and have no qualms about giving them away if they have a suitable home. I also stated previously that if I have an opportunity to get something more suitable like a pair or even a single Apisto (dithers maybe?) to replace the convicts. This brings me to the next point, in which I clearly stated that if the fish appeared to be suffering, or ever had the tiniest idea that I needed to intervene, I would do so instantly.

You also say I would be stunting the adults in 6 months? I think not. They MIGHT grow an inch over the next 6 months, if they are lucky (due to breeding and overall growth rate of convicts in general). Some people claim that the stunting process starts with growth chemical being excreted from the fish and building up in the tank, causing them to sense they should stop growing. I do weekly water changes. There goes that one. The female is MAYBE 2 inches. The male is MAYBE 2.5 inches. The general rule for cichlids would be 2 gallons per inch, and now I am under that. There is also an exception to that rule. Breeding pairs. The cichlids do not require as much room as they both share the same territory instead of fighting over 2 different ones. So that is also a benefiting factor in this case. Then we also need to take into account their size in 6 months. Lets say the female hits 3 inches, and the male 3.5; that'd make it over the golden rule and the breeding pair exception comes in.

Yellow Labs. Seriously? Have you ever wondered why people strip their females and if not, catch them asap? It's because the female WILL eat them unless they find a good hiding place. The reason males wont bother is because assuming your caring for them correctly, they are A. getting plenty of food and B. in a enviroment with so many other labs that the babies aren't worth the bother.

I really don't appreciate you painting me out to be some malicious, disrespectful, and otherwise inept fish keeper when it is in fact that opposite.
 
I've been following this thread for awhile, and I don't mean to get in the middle of anything what so ever.

The only thing that bothers me is that you plan on having these fish just temporarily, as if they are disposal items as opposed to living things that can feel stress and whatnot. Whenever I bring any animal into my house, I know full well I will care for them for as long as they live to the best of my abilities.

For example, this past week I had a power outage. I have 6 fish. 3 Mollys and 3 Cories. None are valuable, and all are very commonplace, "boring" fish. However, every hour I heated water on the grill, in a blizzard, to keep their water warm.

This is just my personal opinion, please don't take offense. I'm sorry to single you out, it's just something I've seen on this forum quite often and it always irks me.

Beautiful fish none the less kribensis12.
 
You are more than welcome to the conversation, as this is the purpose of a forum. I do not consider these fish as disposable in the effect that I will not care for them. I see them as disposable only in the terms that they are temporary. That doesn't mean that I will not care for them any less than I would a normal pet, it just means that I am caring for their IMMEDIATE needs and not their long term needs. I do understand and have seen many times where people do treat them as more than just disposable, by disregarding the health of the fish. This is something I condemn and would not ever do.

Your dedication to your fish is admirable. I've done things similarly when the power went out and the tank was overstocked with fry until I had a good opportunity to cull them and there was not enough oxygen in the tank so I used some oxygen pills and was constantly getting fresh, cold (prefferably warm, but cold water colds more oxygen) water into the tank constantly.
 
Nobody is going to agree with what you are doing, they are pets and if thats how you want to treat your pets....thats up to you.

They strip female Yellow labs because the fry will get eaten in community tanks, i can provide you with pictures if you want, but in my current 4ft tank i have about 20 yellow labs, ranging from 0.3" to 4.5"
 
To be quite honest with you, I'm not really asking anyone to agree with me. Sure, having people on my side is always helpful but certainly not necessary. They also strip the babies because the female will eat them. Don't forget, I've bred them too. It's always nice to see other people's fish and if feel so inclined you are more than welcome to post them. I did state earlier that they can live together, but I have a feeling you must have skipped over that or your previous quote regarding the lab community would be useless.
 

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