Pics of breeding convicts: my first time breeding

[YuccaPatrol]

I have had guppies and platys that produced offspring, but I recently decided to start breeding convicts. My goal is to produce a reliable source of live food for my oscar and other SA cichlids (Jack Dempsey, Firemouth). The livebearers were prolific, but the survival rate of my fry was very low and it took too much time and effort to produce basically nothing.

Last month, I bought a trio of striped convicts, believing that I had 2 females and one male. Turned out that I had 3 females and one of them killed the other 2. Last week, I bought a pink convict male and he was accepted into the tank within a day. A day later they were doing their mating dance.

On Jan 27, the female laid eggs, which hatched Jan 30.

I will update this thread over time and document the growth of these fry.

Here is a photo of my female plucking the freshly hatched wigglers off the rock and moving them to a cave she dug under another rock.

close up of pink male with hatching eggs:

Jan 30th: Female with wiggler fry

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February 5th: 6 day old fry being fed baby brine shrimp

February 7th:

February 16th: Fry have grown to look like little fish instead of tadpoles!

 

[BrianNY]

awesome pics. keep up the great work

 

[Florida8]

Great pictures! Love to see nature in action! Keep them coming!

 

[YuccaPatrol]

awesome pics. keep up the great work

Thanks I am pretty excited.

They are now in the process of moving the babies into a flower pot, and once things settle down tonight I will try to get some pictures of the wigglers. It looks like the vast majority of the eggs hatched successfully.

More pics tonight. . . .

 

[rich311k]

Congrats on the fry and great pics.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

New photo posted in the original post. I am going to make this an ongoing photo-journal and to keep everything together I will post the new photos and updates in the original post. Maybe this will be a good resource for others in the future. . .

 

[YuccaPatrol]

Update: Convict fry at 6 days. They have been eating freshly hatched brine shrimp naupli for the past 2 days.

 

[Elmware]

Dude, that is soo cool.

Congrats.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

This evening, after a day of gorging themselves on freshly hatched baby brine shrimp, they all have bright orange bellies.

I came in an hour after turning out the lights and was amused that the parents had moved them back into the flower pot and put them to bed for the night. The fry were all in the "sleeping" in a huddled mass!

So far, it seems that the vast majority of those that hatched are still alive, but impossible to really count them.

I'll keep taking photos. . .

 

[YuccaPatrol]

Today's update: a great photo of mother and her babies.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

Today's update: a great photo of mother and her babies.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

Convict Fry now look more like little fish instead of tadpoles. Bellies full of baby brine shrimp!

 

[molly luver]

wat set up did u have to breed them in??

 

[theotheragentm]

They look great. Good work.

 

[GouramiFanatic]

Those are exceptional photos! I'm giving breeding some thought so I've found this thread to be pretty interesting. If I do decide to breed, I'm starting with Pearl Gouramis. We'll see where that road takes me.

 

[Big Ben]

sweeet pics, congrats. their fat bellies r hilarious! i had mine breed in the summer. just like urs i had onepink and a regular but the pink was a female with mine.

ur fry look like theyre growing way faster thenmine did, but i didnt have brine shrimp, i fed crushed flake which is prob why. nice work, they seem to be growing fast. most of mine were fedto my jack dempsey and green terror w/ the same idea u had but i stoped cuz i cudnt get them to grow fast enough ( probly cuz ididnt feedthemgood enough food).

I did grow a fewout and i sold the breeding pair and a few fry. But i have 4 left in my tank all pretty small but i have a pair which have triedto breed once. their fry were eaten in days after they hatched tho, probly too small to fight off the other fish. good job keep posting those pics!

 

[Big Ben]

sweeet pics, congrats. their fat bellies r hilarious! i had mine breed in the summer. just like urs i had onepink and a regular but the pink was a female with mine.

ur fry look like theyre growing way faster thenmine did, but i didnt have brine shrimp, i fed crushed flake which is prob why. nice work, they seem to be growing fast. most of mine were fedto my jack dempsey and green terror w/ the same idea u had but i stoped cuz i cudnt get them to grow fast enough ( probly cuz ididnt feedthemgood enough food).

I did grow a fewout and i sold the breeding pair and a few fry. But i have 4 left in my tank all pretty small but i have a pair which have triedto breed once. their fry were eaten in days after they hatched tho, probly too small to fight off the other fish. good job keep posting those pics!