Convict; repro. mostly; comp.       4/2/20 Hey there I actually have a question on my one single female convict that I have in a tank. In my tank there are also five ghost cat fish a few tetras two twig catfish, And only one single female convict. <Not a combination I'd recommend. Twig Catfish, Farlowella spp., need strong water currents, relatively low temperatures, and an abundance of green algae. Otherwise they end up dead. Very few people keep them alive for long, sadly. No idea what your tetras are, but Ghost Catfish, Kryptopterus spp., are sensitive fish that are easily bullied. Again, not obvious companions for a hard water cichlid species know to be highly aggressive.> So my question is would she be able to lay eggs even though there is no male? <Unlikely, but can happen. Remove the eggs. They will be unfertilised, of course, and will rot and go fungussy within a few days. Once that happens, it's no better than leaving a dead fish in the tank -- one more source of ammonia for the filter to deal with.> There are eggs in my tank that she started to protect do you think it is one of the other fishes eggs that she is protecting? <Defensive Convicts can be extremely troublesome, so keep an eye on this tank. If it's 100 gallons you'd probably be fine, but 20 or 30 gallons, I'd be getting that female out ASAP. Frankly, Convicts aren't community fish, and shouldn't be kept as such.> Thanks Vee <Most welcome. Neale.>

Please help...      6/3/19 Help I own both albino and zebra convicts cichlids and have for 2 years I have 3 running tanks and can't figure out for the life of me what is going on with my albino cant seem to narrow it down he has growth on pectoral fins and underneath his bottom gills it's always been there and never spread there are 3 others in the tank as well please help me possible diagnose what wrong so I can properly deal with it thanks in advance amber <Most likely viral, though the blurry photo doesn't really help. If you can send a sharp photo up to 500kB in size, that would help. (We do ask for small images because our crewmembers are all around the world and reliant on mobile phones even satellite links, and really can't handle big image files.) In any event, viral infections are essentially untreatable. They tend to be caused by environmental stresses, such as chronically poor water quality or exposure to heavy metals. That said, inbreeding does seem to make them more likely because viral infections are particularly characteristic of things like Bettas, Angels, and Koi carp, so there's probably an element of genetic predisposition at work here as well. Many viral infections will clear themselves up eventually, but this may take years, and of course optimal water quality and diet. On the other hand, viral infections are rarely lethal; while there are some exceptions that do kill fish quickly, these do not seem common in the tropical fish hobby. So provided the fish is not in distress, and it can move, feed, ventilate its gills, and defecate normally, there's no immediate danger. Of course secondary bacterial and/or fungal infections are a risk and will need to be treated accordingly. Cheers, Neale.>

Central American cichlids, info. re convicts <<RMF>>   1/15/12
Hi, my name is John. I came across your page during a Google search. I was looking up some information on why my male nicaraguensis cichlids mouth was stuck open. After reading on your site that it was most likely a dislocated jaw from a fight. This was all that I needed and wanted to thank you for the information.
<Thanks for the kind words!>
But I did see a couple things that were incorrect on the central American cichlid page. One being the photo of the "convict cichlids", those are actually nicaraguensis.
<Which page is this? Sounds a silly mistake to make! We'll fix this.><<URL please>>
And secondly its stated that male nicaraguensis are bigger than the females. This is actually opposite The females usually grow a couple inches bigger than males.
<Really? Many reports to the contrary. Perhaps there's no hard-and-fast rule. But Bob will add your comments to the CA Cichlids FAQs for others to read and consider; thank you.><<Not so as far as I've ever encountered; females are always smaller, often w/ orange patching on their sides>>
Thanks for your time and all of the information you have given.
<And thanks for writing. Cheers, Neale.>

Albino Convict Cichlid 5/28/2009
Mutant Convict Death And Breeding
Good day to you guys, I have a 35gallon tank with 4 tailless albino convict (most commonly known here in my country as toffy parrot) and all paired with one another) but I was able to determine that it was a convict after comparing notes from different websites and studying my fish physically and its personality. I had a couple whom a few days back just spawned some eggs. The male was protective of its territory and was not letting the female leave its cave and does the job of running after tankmates who were getting close to their cave, The female then just tries to grab a quick pellet or two every time its feeding time. That aside, on the 3rd day after spawning, I noticed that the water was a bit cloudy, even just after changing water 3 days ago (same day I saw the convict eggs). So I made partial water change leaving a siphon and a hose on at the same time and then stopped after a few minutes after I saw the water cleared. I added some rock salt and a few teaspoons of anti-chlorine - which I always do after water change. However, after about 30 min.s I saw the male inverted dead.. I would like to know if the water change affected the male since I still saw him eating and energetically chasing his tankmates before the water change was done. Now the female is doing both taking care of the eggs and chasing tankmates off the area. Did the water change stressed him too much and would his death affect the rearing of the fry once hatched?
Thank you and hoping for your response...
< You probably should have placed the water in a bucket and then added the dechlorinator before adding this water to the tank. Water high in chlorine or chloramines can be deadly to fish. The female will attempt to take care of the fry but her job will be much more difficult without the help of the male.-Chuck>

Re: Albino Convict Cichlid 05/29/09
Quick Convict Death After Water Change
Thanks for responding quickly... I did not use the process of putting the water in a bucket and dechlorinating it overnight because our water is deep-well (spring water) and does not go through any process like what city water goes through. I just had the habit of putting anti-chlorine on it for safety purposes but has not had any effect on my community tank for the past 6 months (since I started the hobby). The water change did not have any effect on the other tank mates nor the other convicts, I was wondering if the water change stressed the male more since all day long he was chasing other tankmates away from their lair, and doing the water change might have increased the stress level to the point that it killed the fish. would this be possible?
<Well water may have compressed gases that are released when the water is brought to the surface. I would still recommend letting the water sit overnight before putting it in an aquarium. The water change may have startled the convict and it may have accidentally hit an item in the tank.
Trauma to the head could quickly injure or kill it.-Chuck>