Breeding cichlids

[Newfishlover07]

We have many many cichlids about 20 in all, we have made attempts to buy a male and female of every color and kind. Most are African cichlids but we do have some blue rams and convicts. We have been patiently waiting for any of them to mate but the closest we got was one of our black and yellow guys chasing around a female we had just bought for him. I'm at a loss with these guys as we have bred swordtails, tiger barbs, and our feeder guppys and were very sucessful. We did buy one south american pair who was already brooding but over night all the fry vanished. Any idea on what to do would be great. We are looking at getting a 60 gal just for our cichlids (except the convicts) but I'm not sure that would make a difference. I can upload pics of some of our pairs if wanted. Thanks

 

[DragonFish71]

I hope you don't have the rams, the africans and the convicts all in the same tank. You're looking for some serious trouble if you do. The rams will be the first to get killed, then the convicts and africans will go at it. Being that both types are mean as sin, it's a coin toss, but my money would be on the africans winning.

 

[Hobgob]

What type if triggers are you doing? Temp? Ph? Etc? Cichlids spawn based on season and you have to replicate that season in the aquarium...

 

[Newfishlover07]

The only problem we had was with one convict but it was doing its mating thing. None of our fish have any problems with each other they all school together eat together and share dens. We want to keep the convicts in the monster tank due to the size they will get and seperate the others.

We keep our tank steady at 7.6 7.8, as we didn't know changing it will help breeding. Also the temp stays at 80 and is strictly regulated. Our nitrates and nitrites are always 0 along with our ammonia.

We have had all of these fish together for two months and the only one we lost was our old ghost knife when we moved.

 

[Hobgob]

How are your nitrates at 0 and yes each fish has different triggers. Some fish will only breed in certain ph. During the rainy season the water level rise causing more vergitation to get submerged resulting in a ph change. This let's the fish no what season it is. Depending on the fish different triggers will be needed. Normally once a pair is made. The pair is put into their own tank and then removed once the fry is hatched.
Look up what triggers your fish need or experiment.

 

[Newfishlover07]

I honestly know nothing about what should be where, that's all my husband and we have a kit to test our water from api. I did make a chart of all of the fish and our levels are within range of the other fish. The only fish...I... care about are the cichlids and my swordtails, everything else I kind of hate. They are either my sons fish or my husbands. He wants a monster tank so he doesn't have to get rid of his oscar later on down the road. But thanks for the help

 

[Hobgob]

I know what you mean. I hate rehoming fish... It's never fun. Especially when you get attach to the fish. You never wanna see it go.

 

[absolutangel04]

So, how big is the current tank? I might be mistaken, but are you saying you have had all these fish for just 2 months? Did you have an established tank before and you have just been adding more fish gradually, or did you add a whole bunch of them 2 months ago?
Getting guppies to breed is much easier than some of the other species you now have. The fish were describing who spawned likely ate all their eggs/fry. Lots of fish are notorious for eating the first spawn.

 

[Newfishlover07]

No we have had a majority of the fish for almost six months. Just in the last two months we moved. We have a 75 gal a 20 gal and a 10 gal. We just gave our seven barbs three convicts and oscar to the pet store we always go to because they tore apart our goby and killed a jack Dempsey that we just put in the tank not even five mins before we found him dead. Our 10 gal is housing all of our feeders, the 20 has two tiny elec blue jack dempseys maybe a half inch long, our deformed guppy lucky, four fancy guppies( all males), our dragon goby and our black ghost knife temporarily till we see how the other fish are doing. The goby may stay in the 20 because of how torn up he is, he has no fins left except his belly fin. We never had a problem with any of the fish being together until last night. Even though a week ago our barbs stopped schooling we kept them hoping they would go back to normal but became too aggressive. All we have in our 75 now is our two sharks, a peacock eel, Dino birchir, our loaches, a sucker, danios, and our asst African cichlids. I hate that we had to get ride of some of our fish but they were not worth losing the other dempseys we paid 50 bucks a pc for.
We actually had to get rid of our Oscar because the other fish were picking on him even the Chinese algae eater.

Also the fish that ate the babies were sa cichlids who had had two batches prior to us buying her and had no problems with them.

 

[Newfishlover07]

The four guppies are in with our deformed guppy because we want to wait for the sand to settle in our 10 gal before we throw them in there.

 

[Wy Renegade]

No we have had a majority of the fish for almost six months. Just in the last two months we moved. We have a 75 gal a 20 gal and a 10 gal. We just gave our seven barbs three convicts and oscar to the pet store we always go to because they tore apart our goby and killed a jack Dempsey that we just put in the tank not even five mins before we found him dead. Our 10 gal is housing all of our feeders, the 20 has two tiny elec blue jack dempseys maybe a half inch long, our deformed guppy lucky, four fancy guppies( all males), our dragon goby and our black ghost knife temporarily till we see how the other fish are doing. The goby may stay in the 20 because of how torn up he is, he has no fins left except his belly fin. We never had a problem with any of the fish being together until last night. Even though a week ago our barbs stopped schooling we kept them hoping they would go back to normal but became too aggressive. All we have in our 75 now is our two sharks, a peacock eel, Dino birchir, our loaches, a sucker, danios, and our asst African cichlids. I hate that we had to get ride of some of our fish but they were not worth losing the other dempseys we paid 50 bucks a pc for.
We actually had to get rid of our Oscar because the other fish were picking on him even the Chinese algae eater.

Also the fish that ate the babies were sa cichlids who had had two batches prior to us buying her and had no problems with them.

Ok, wait - you have all these fish (highlighted in red) in a 75 gallon tank, and you're wanting Africans to breed successfully in this tank? First off, what happened to all the SA cichlids and the German blues you mentioned earlier?

 

[Newfishlover07]

We still have them.

 

[Newfishlover07]

Yeah we do have all the ones marked in red

 

[biged1969]

Probably the easiest cichlids to breed are convicts. They're not too picky about water conditions and the guy at my LFS said they would breed in a toilet if given the chance. I know that's a bit extreme but shows how easy they are to breed. I have a pair in an overstocked 40 and they have babies right now and are very good parents, they will not let anything else on their half of the tank. Its almost like i have a divider in there. If anything else goes on their side of the tank the male runs them back to their side, its quite fun to watch.

 

[Newfishlover07]

Well we are not ready to breed our africans yet but want to in the near future. We got rid of our convicts because they killed very expensive fish and started fighting amongst eachother. I won't be devestated if the africans don't breed I just love having babies lol. We have three feeder guppy fry in a tank with a peacock eel goby ram dempseys and a bgk and no one bothers the little guys. Plus it would be awsome to see the africans parent the fry.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Yeah we do have all the ones marked in red

So where are they? Mixed in with the others or in a different tank? If you truly want to breed these fish, you need to do some research. The German Blues, the SA cichlids and the Africans all have different water chemistry requirements - if you want them to be happy, healthy, and breed, you're going to have to have separate tanks for each type. If you don't provide that, as has already been pointed, as the SA pairs begin to pair up and establish breeding territories and the dominate male Africans begin staking out territories and maintaining them you are going to see the aggression levels going up and up, and you're going to lose more and more fish. You not going to have successful breeding as any offspring will most likely be consumed by the larger fish in the tank. 6 months isn't long enough to have a true sense of the true nature or breeding habits of most, if not all of these fish. I have Africans that took over two years to fully mature and reach full breeding status and start showing true behaviors. Personally, I recommend you select one type of cichlid to keep in your tank - either the German Blues (require a pH of 7 or less), the SA cichlids (can't tell you much about these), or the Africans (most require a higher pH, around 8). Once you've decided which type you want, start doing some specific research and figure out exactly which species you want - Oscars have different requirements than discus for example. Once you figure that out, then you can move on to having a happy and healthy tank - and then you will likely see them start to breed on their own.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Well we are not ready to breed our africans yet but want to in the near future. We got rid of our convicts because they killed very expensive fish and started fighting amongst eachother. I won't be devestated if the africans don't breed I just love having babies lol. We have three feeder guppy fry in a tank with a peacock eel goby ram dempseys and a bgk and no one bothers the little guys. Plus it would be awsome to see the africans parent the fry.

Were are you getting your information from? Africans do not parent their fry (other than for a very short time when the mother carries the eggs/fry in her mouth). Once the babies are released by mom, they become food for any other fish in the tank, including the parents.

 

[Newfishlover07]

Ok look I'm not [moderator edit] here as I've said a million times we have three tanks, they had to be temporarily housed together because of an ich outbreak, we needed the smaller tanks for isolation. Now they are back up and running. The sa s are in a tank the africans are in another and the dempseys are in the third. The mouth brooding is what I was talking about with the parenting comment. I know my cichlids are not at the maturity to breed yet but I wanted to know what was all needed to be done so when the time came that they could be bred we know exactly what to do. We are willing to have 15 tanks running if that's what it takes for our fish to be housed correctly and healthy. Money is not an issue for us neither is what needs to be changed. Its funny you criticis someone for asking for help to do it the right way when we could be out just throwing 300 fish in a 75 gal tank and letting nature take its course.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Ok look I'm not retarded here as I've said a million times we have three tanks, they had to be temporarily housed together because of an ich outbreak, we needed the smaller tanks for isolation. Now they are back up and running. The sa s are in a tank the africans are in another and the dempseys are in the third. The mouth brooding is what I was talking about with the parenting comment. I know my cichlids are not at the maturity to breed yet but I wanted to know what was all needed to be done so when the time came that they could be bred we know exactly what to do. We are willing to have 15 tanks running if that's what it takes for our fish to be housed correctly and healthy. Money is not an issue for us neither is what needs to be changed. Its funny you criticis someone for asking for help to do it the right way when we could be out just throwing 300 fish in a 75 gal tank and letting nature take its course.

Please understand, I'm not trying to imply that you are retarded in any way shape or form. Nor am I criticizing you for asking for help. However, it is really hard to help when you can't seem to make it clear exactly what your situation is. According to what I've read so far, you have three tanks: a 75, a 20, and a 10. Of the three, only one of those is of the appropriate size to house either SA cichlids or African cichlids. Of those three only one, the 75, is of an appropriate size to house a full grown Oscar, and yet you tell us that has "two sharks, a peacock eel, Dino birchir, our loaches, a sucker, danios, and our asst African cichlids". According to you, your "10 gal is housing all of our feeders, the 20 has two tiny elec blue jack dempseys maybe a half inch long, our deformed guppy lucky, four fancy guppies( all males), our dragon goby and our black ghost knife temporarily till we see how the other fish are doing." Yet somewhere you have breeding SA cichilids as well as maybe an Oscar and Convicts, although if I understand correctly, maybe you've taken the Oscar and the Convicts back to the LFS? So where are the breeding SA cichlids and the German Blues? You say you had SA breed, but the only ones you've mention are the tiny electric blue Jack dempseys - obviously they are not a breeding pair. And no where in that did you tell me where the German Blues are located. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm trying to help, however you are making that really difficult to do when you are not providing enough accurate information for us to help you.

What I am telling you is if you want to breed SA cichlids and African cichlids both, you are going to need to buy more tanks - you will need at least a 55 gal tank for your SA cichlids, and you can use the 75 gal for your Africans. You need to do some more research on those other fish you have in with the Africans, as most of them are not compatible long term with the Africans, and they will eventually need their own tank (sooner preferably rather than later). Oscars get very large - dinner plate size in fact, and if you plan to keep an Oscar as well, you will need an additional 55gal tank for it. The aggression and mean behavior that you are seeing from the various cichlids is completely normal and will simply increase as they grow and as breeding pair establish. If you thought the convicts were bad, you need to understand that convicts and Oscars pale in comparison for aggressive behavior next to established, large, healthy Africans.

 

[jetajockey]

I'm really confused by this thread. What is the question again? I think the first thing to do is to figure out what your intended goal is and go from there.