Whoo Hoo!

[Nevergone815]

Ok, I know that this may not be to amazing for everyone, but I am REALLY excited. I went to my lfs today and saw that they got in a shipment of convicts. In it was this nice, larger male. I wanted him and decided that since I already have a female, I would get another one and let him choose. So the guy walks over and he overheard us (my girlfriend and I) talking about our plans to possibly breed him. He told us that that the female by him was in fact his mate. Since Well turns out that the one I wanted to get was his offspring from his recent spawn. The previous owner turned him and his mate into the store along with their spawn because they were "breeding like crazy". So i bought them together. THEY ARE AN ESTABLISHED BREEDING PAIR!!! I'm so excited!!! I paid regular price for them or $2.29 US each. The best thing is that they will take the spawn if I let them grow up and give me store credit for them. So I couldn't resist. I don't know how much, but since they are an established pair and I frequent the store so much, I figure it will be some nice extra cash that I will have built up at the store and use for food and other things. I set up an established tank I have because I didn't want to put a breeding pair of Convicts into my 55 gal tank. So they are in another tank for now. I will get another tank really soon and will let them be the sole inhabitants in there. They are about 3.5" for the male and 2.5" for the female. The male is a black, or striped (not sure what to label him) Convict, and the female is a pink Convict. Well without further adieu here hey are...

The lovely lady (Fiona)

Here's the hopefully soon to be daddy (Shrek)

Here's a few of the lovely couple

And here are some of their temporary home

Tell me what you guys think!!!

 

[pica_nuttalli]

sooo cute!!! i can't wait until mine grow up enough to start pairing off. the biggest is already one sexy dude

i love that your female is a pink and your male the traditional striped. very appropriate (if you pay attention to those sorts of gender stereotypes )

 

[ox5477]

Glad to hear you found the established pair!! If you are planning on turing in most of the fry, then I would get maybe a 40G to house them in when they are born to allow them to grow out a bit. Even then, you won't be able to let them get to big as you will soon run out of room (300 fry take up a lot of room). The guy will give you marginal monies for the babies prob so don't think your gonna get rich breeding them. Like you said, the pair were basically only 5 dollars, and thats an established breeding pair. The babies are going to be substantially less. Have fun though!! always amazing to see living things create more life!!

 

[Nevergone815]

That's what I figured. Not to much money. I'm expecting probably $0.10 US per fry or something like that. But it would be a great experience to breed them and earn a little extra cash. Turning in 300 fry to multiple lfs (because I doubt this one will take them all ) at that rate would get me about %30 store credit. Like you said not rich, but some extra cash to spend in the store. For instance my fish get sick and I don't get paid until later in the week and have absolutely no cash, then I have a fall back. I know I won't get rich breeding these guys, but I was excited that it was an established pair. They weren't selling them as a pair, but separate and the guy that works there told me they came in together and were a breeding pair. The guy is good and reliable (the only one in the store when it comes to cichlids and oddballs). He actually thought of me first when they came in saying that they would be great for me. I planned on getting them a nice 55 gal just for them and their fry maybe, and if need be, have a tank set up to house the parents if I want to ensure a higher number of fry survive. After all, even though they are an established pair, they may still at some fry. But thanks guys/gals on the replies.

 

[SamUK]

id go and see if you can actually rehome convict fry (and alot of them) before really starting this.


they make rabbits look infertile so youll find alot of LFS wont take them or already have too many.

 

[Nevergone815]

As I stated i the original post, the lfs I got them from said they would take the spawns. So that is a given. The only thing that I'm not sure on is how many they will take at a time. I have no problem feeding fry to my other cichlids in the other tank or the fish in my girlfriend's community tank. So getting rid of the huge numbers won't be a problem. I'm just doing this for an experience, and I have multiple ways to lessen the numbers if need be.