In Pursuit Of A Convict

In my previous post I discussed one of the two major headaches that I've been trying to fight for a few months with regard to my aquarium: my high rate of plecostomus turnover. The other headache involved the attempted capture of my last remaining convict cichlid. Well, along with my renewed efforts to keep a longer living pleco in tact I also found some resolution on the second front: I finally captured my convict!!!

You might be asking yourself, why would you want to get rid of such a beautiful fish? I must admit it was a very tough decision to come to, but for the longterm concerns of my aquarium community it was vital. In researching the types of cichlids that I wanted to possibly make up my more aggressive tank, I came across this breed which I found absolutely beautiful. So, at the same time I got my big Jack Dempsey, which still remains my big boss fish, I also got a pair of these convicts: one male and one female. At first glance you would think that the considerably smaller convicts would be in danger of being killed off by the humongous Jack Dempsey. However, due to nature of the convicts' small-man's complex, it is able to aggressively stake out its territory. So much so that it takes it a little too far and gangs up on fish bigger than it if they come anywhere close.

Another huge problem with convicts that I was unaware of at the time was their rampant tendency to breed. In fact, if you allow it to continue they will spawn a brood of fry upwards in size of 50 or 60 almost immediately upon entering the tank. And it turns out that there is an old aquarium adage that they are such quick breeders, that they'll breed in the bag on the way home from the shop. A brood of 50 fry would not be so unwieldy if they were from many other varieties of fish, because the larger fish in the tank would just eat most of them, including the parents often times. However, the cichlids are superb parents and will guard their babies with the same ferocity that they guard their nesting territory. So, inevitably almost all of the original brood survive. And it doesn't end there. As soon as the huge collection of newborns goes into adolescence, THEY will breed their own. Obviously, you can see the problem here. This leads to a horrible overpopulation problem. Basically, if you don't intend to dedicate your entire tank to convict cichlids, then you should avoid this breed altogether.

So, after learning these problems first hand, and witnessing the first batch of newborn fry being born in my own community, I decided to go about the task of capturing the parents and all of the newborns with the exception of a couple of females. I intended to just have a few females since they are the more colorful of the convicts, as you can see in the picture above. They have that distinctive side-coloring, while the males do not. I was able to dispose of all but the one female newborn. I later learned as the the small fry became older, it had inherited the same over-aggression from it's parents. Additionally, it turns out the breeding problem wasn't completely eliminated, because apparently they are such rampant breeders, they would even attempt to breed with the other cichlid varieties. In my case, this would include my big boss fish. So I decided I needed to get rid of this last convict, and be done with it. That was easier said than done.

So, to make a long story short, after weeks and weeks of trying to get rid of this think, I was finally able to do it when I had all of my decorations removed during the rearrangement I did last weekend. Problem solved. So, lesson learned: never take a convict into your home...

Cheers.