convict question

[justlooking2]

Looking for some help here...We've had 1 convict, the darker one for over a year, and bought the white convict about 2 months ago. They never got along so we separated them with a divider. Taking it out every so often. Recently we overhauled the tank and created new caves and decided to introduce them together again. THe dark one constantly chases the white one. Last night we took the white one and put it in a breeder tank because it was being beat up on and were thinking about taking it back to the store. Today we threw him back in the tank and right away the 2 of them started doing the mouth lip lock fight thing, then swirling around each other. That went on for just over an hour, then the white one took off, and soon after the dark one started chasing it around the tank again on and off. As of right now, the white one is spending most of its time at the top of the tank in the corner. THe white one does have a pink color on the belly, does that mean its a female? At any rate, we took a video.

http://s115.photobucket.com/albums/n300/track_star1500/?action=view&current=Picture043_toAVI.flv


Do you think its just fighting, or are they spawning? I have no idea. Any info would help, thanks.[/url]

[Dan Woodland]

It looks like you have two males. Females have a bright pink or orange spot on their belly. Dan

[justlooking2]

Heres a picture of them separated. So they are 2 males?

[Dan Woodland]

Yes, here are some females..... witha red belly. You should be able to get one at the store and tell the deffirence easily once you see the diffrence here.

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/convict.htm



http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/encyclopedia-298.html

Have fun,

Dan

[Lisachromis]

Females have gold/orange coloured scales on their bellies like this:



(Above image from http://www.fishbase.com/)

[justlooking2]

its pretty amazing, that between 2 different forums Im being told 2 different things. On here, both are males, on cichlid-forum.com Im being told, they both look female. No wonder its all confusing. I have infact figured out though that basically the tank is too small for 2 convicts (15 gallon). thanks for your guys' help

[Dan Woodland]

We determined they are males by looking at their body size and shape as well as fin extensions. Males are taller larger while females are shorter and smaller. The belly scales can also be used as mentioned before. Dan

[justlooking2]

Well I built a stand to hold 2 tanks. Bought a 29g for the top and put a new 20g on the bottom. So now I have my 15g as a spare. Eventually the 2 cons pictured above got along pretty good. I bought another con and seperated the black con out into the 20g. Still more to do to get them looking better.
Here's the new tanks and stand.


And here is a pic of the pair. The new one is in the front, and my original in the back. Pretty sure the new one is a male, time will tell for sure

[Dan Woodland]

Yep, it's a male! Good luck. Nice stand. Dan

[illustrator]

I am curious how it is going now. My guess is, based on the photographs, that the first "black" fish is not a true convict but a hybrid of a convict with something else. The head shape is too pointed and the eye-colour and overall colour don't match with convicts. Hard to say which is the other involved species, could be something as "different looking" as a firemouth (which would explain the headshape). Very hard to say if such a fish will ever pair up with anything, it might not recognise any other fish as "it's own species" and it's behaviour might not be recognised by any other cichlid either.

The white ones, well, hmmm, I think that they are both ... male leucistic (white) convicts, one adult and one subadult.

And your aquariums look kind of small to house several of these territorial guys.

So, after all this, please tell me that i have it all wrong!

[Philippe Burnel]

what a lovely tank !

[Bojan Dolenc]

The role of sex ratios and resource availability on the pre-mating behavior of a monogamous fish