Due to a school project I had bred many pairs of convicts.
They are fairly easy to breed.
Temperature of 25-26.5C;
for our pair, we only provide less than 10g for pair (17.5 g for two pairs with a divider in between)
with half flower pot, some plants and bubbler
substrate size are small enough so the fish can decorate the way they want.
some fish just don't get along well. Don't wait until the fish is killed. Remove the fish if it doesn't seem to work out (observe how the pair interact closely once you have introduce them).
If the fish do pair up, you can see eggs in as short as 4-5 days you introduce the fish. But we had the case where it took over a month for them to breed.
Female of 6 cm (almost 2 inches) are sexually mature; usually has red/green/blue/yellow colouration on the belly
Male of 10 cm (almost 3 inches) are sexually mature; less colouration, has small dots on the caudal fin; grow much bigger
most eggs hatch in 3 days (can take up to 5 days)
and they will stay as wrigglers (with egg sac) for about 3 days
once they are in free swimming fry stage, they should be fed twice a day
make sure to feed sufficient amount of food to the parents, otherwise the pair might decided to eat their eggs/wrigglers (lost several brood that way)
Once a female had laid eggs, it takes her a minimum of 21 days to produce another batch of eggs. By this time, the previous batch of fry should be just around 1 cm. Once the fry are old enough, they should be removed since I found my fry to be nibbling on the newly laid eggs. When the fry are large enough, they will even eat their own siblings. Junior convict cichlids are nature predators of convict fry.
It takes approximately a year for them to grow to 2 inches long.
Plus don't forget to do a weekly 1/3 water change!
