Tired Of Baby Convicts

[Elite]

I was pretty against getting a female convict for my lone male, but my roommate said she'd love for us to have baby fish and I definently wanted more than one fish who refused to come out from behind his rocks. So I got a female. Now, a couple of months later, I still have my first batch of fry, they're about 3/4 inch long, probably about 100 of them, maybe a little less. It's a 20 gal tank. I like my little fish, but it's such a hastle to clean the tank and I'm spending massive ammounts on feeding all of these babies. I'm taking them to a petshop within the next couple of weeks, but after that I don't want fry. I don't eant to get rid of either of these convicts, either. I have a 20 long back home with an extremely aggressive convict and a couple loaches, and I think it'd be nice if I could put the pair into his tank and maybe he'd take care of my fry problem. I'd just take the fry home for him to eat, but that's an hour drive and I don't actually drive. I can only have up to a 25 gallon tank in my dorm (but can have multiples of them). My roomie is now very tired of my tank and all the babies and wants me to leave the tank at home over winter break and I think I said the meanest "no" to her that I've ever said. You don't ask me to do something like that, lol. So do you think I could put the cons all together? Or maybe I could trade my tank in for a slightly larger tank or a 20 long and get something like a firemouth to take care of the problem? I jsut don't know what to do. I'd just bring my other con tank up here as a seperate tank and feed the fry to him, but my roomie doesn't want the one that is here as is, and she certainly would hate me if I got another tank (I have 2 little tanks up here too).
Also would my cons mind if I changed their substrate from sand to gravel? I'm really starting to hate sand.

 

[dcj38]

well I have breeding cons in my tank right now, and trust me a firemouth aint gonna do nothin, as i have 5 african cichlids and all they do is go near them and get aggressively fought away. I suggest you get rid of the female and get a male, and if that doesnt work, then try a different set up.

Adam

 

[swampcat]

convicts are a pain. I too thought it would be cool to breed a pair. They never stop!!! Then the babies will start to mate, its never ending!!! I have multible large tanks I ended up with atleast a thousand over a three year period. Third and fourth generation convicts. If you want to use as feeders it must be done in a seperate tank away from parents otherwise nothing will be able to eat them with parents present.

I could not find anyone to take them, I found homes for 25 of them, the rest were mine to keep. No stores would take them, the stores told me they will take any fish but convicts, friends with tanks did not want them, after all they don't mix well with friendly fish. I tried giving them to my childrens friends explaining how hardy they are as a sales pitch, no takers.

Convicts will live and grow in non heated tanks, poor water conditions you name it. I ended up using 30 gallon plastic storage tubs to house them , filtered with hob's. I even had fish in my basement closet.

I had to unfortunatly kill them, which was quite hard after raising them from babies, BUT IT HAD TO STOP.
I fed most of them to a red eared slider (turtle). Any new fry was sucked out with a gravel cleaner and fed to my angels.

I kept and still have two full grown males in a 100 gallon tank. Really good fish, but will never make the mistake of introducing a female ever again for sure.

Convicts will not be effected by any substrate gravel, sand, or anything else.