Although I seldom put up blog posts concerning my tropical fish, I have been keeping tropical fish almost continuously since I was in junior high school. For the last few years, I have been maintaining a school of Convicts (Amatitlania nigrofasciata). A group of them inhabit a 55 gallon tank and I have another 10 gallon tank that I occasionally set up for breeding. That 55 gallon tank is too crowded for successful breeding. As I occasionally lose a fish, I keep an eye on the population in case numbers get too low. Lately I have been concerned about the number of females left in the 55 gallon tank, so I figured I should set up the spawning tank.

I put a female alone in the tank and adjusted the temperature to the mid 70’s. After about a week I added a similar sized male. That was something like 2 weeks ago and now we have had a spawning. That is about all it takes to get Convicts to spawn. You do have to keep an eye on the males, as when put in isolation with a single female, they can get tough on the female, but that is about the only thing to watch out for. In groups, this problem doesn’t appear as much, as the males tend to spend a lot of energy squabbling among themselves.

The Convicts have become one of my favorite species. They are hardy, not skittish and are extremely easy to breed. They have the typical Cichlid spawning behavior which is so much fun to watch. In my experience they are no more aggressive than other similarly sized Cichlids.

A great fish for everyone, from beginners on up.