Raising baby Convicts?

AnnetteG

AnnetteG

getting back to basics
Sep 24, 2007
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Okay, so last night, I rescued about 13 or so baby convict cichlids from one of our tanks at work. We are supposed to just vacuum them out when they spawn, so I felt like bringing some home to see what happens. I moved some fish around and now they've got a 10 gallon tank to themselves. I put a nylon over the filter intake. There is sand on bottom and a few silk plants and a little cave. Oh and I am also letting MTS from our plant tank at work multiply in there to feed my puffer. I didn't think they'd bother the babies though.

Last night before bringing them home, I put liquid fry food in with them, which got dumped into the tank when they did. I wasn't about to try netting them out of the bag. It was hard enough catching them to put in the bag! This morning, I dissolved some flake food in tank water and put that in there, and I also gave them a little bit of frozen krill, also defrosted in tank water first. Not sure if they're able to eat any of that, but thought I'd try. We were out of the liquid fry food at the store, and I went to another store today but could only find the First Bites powdery food, so I've given them that tonight. Is this good?

Is there anything else I should be doing for them? I'd like to see at least some of them to adulthood, if possible. We plan to get a 100g tank or more in January and want to make it a cichlid tank, so these babies will be a good start!

Thanks for any advice!
 
AnnetteG said:
Okay, so last night, I rescued about 13 or so baby convict cichlids from one of our tanks at work. We are supposed to just vacuum them out when they spawn, so I felt like bringing some home to see what happens. I moved some fish around and now they've got a 10 gallon tank to themselves. I put a nylon over the filter intake. There is sand on bottom and a few silk plants and a little cave. Oh and I am also letting MTS from our plant tank at work multiply in there to feed my puffer. I didn't think they'd bother the babies though.

Last night before bringing them home, I put liquid fry food in with them, which got dumped into the tank when they did. I wasn't about to try netting them out of the bag. It was hard enough catching them to put in the bag! This morning, I dissolved some flake food in tank water and put that in there, and I also gave them a little bit of frozen krill, also defrosted in tank water first. Not sure if they're able to eat any of that, but thought I'd try. We were out of the liquid fry food at the store, and I went to another store today but could only find the First Bites powdery food, so I've given them that tonight. Is this good?

Is there anything else I should be doing for them? I'd like to see at least some of them to adulthood, if possible. We plan to get a 100g tank or more in January and want to make it a cichlid tank, so these babies will be a good start!

Thanks for any advice!
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I'd get a hard-boiled egg and get a pinch of egg yolk. Suspend it in the jar with water. Stir and then you can use a medicine dropper and squirt the water containing egg yolk particles to to shoal of fry. Don't overdo it as egg yolk can pollute the water easily. I'd try to add Java moss and riccia so the fry can pick on microorganisms found in them.

P.S. If you are using clean utensils, you can eat the rest of the hard-boiled egg so it's not a total waste.:)
 
I do have some java moss I can move in there and I have a java fern too, should I put that in?

Can I put baby red cherry shrimp in there with them?

I will totally go boil some eggs now! Thank you!
 
gotcha! darnit. Every time I think I'll be able to get some RCS, something happens and I don't have anywhere to put them. I wasn't PLANNING on bringing these babies home last night, but after my coworker told me we were just going to vac them out :eek:, I couldn't NOT bring some home. I'm such a softie. :)
 
baby cons are pretty good at surviving...ive raised them on nothing more than finely ground protien flake/pellets...you wont have to worry to much about water quility, cons can live in a muddy puddle (make that, thrive in a muddy puddle) though id still recomend proper water maintenance. Good luck, youl have more cons than you can poke a stick at in 6 months....Q how do you breed cons...A just add water
 
:lol2: And now I have room for them!!! :lol2:

I found a LFS that will give me store credit for them once they're an inch or so, so I'll keep several and trade the others in.

I have 2 jewels that I'm hoping are going to turn out to be a pair and start producing babies too!
 
AnnetteG said:
:lol2: And now I have room for them!!! :lol2:

I found a LFS that will give me store credit for them once they're an inch or so, so I'll keep several and trade the others in.
Click to expand...

Wow! You're lucky. I can't find pet stores that will take mine so I end up giving them away or using them as feeders. On a side note: I feed mine crushed up cichlid and shrimp pellets, cichlid flakes, bloodworms and live mosquito larva.
 
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