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hey guys,what is about worms or live foods,that is making my cons spawn and my blue acara and green terror aswell,when ever i want some fry,i just use more worms/livefood and within about a week,ive got eggs,so what is it about the worms/livefood that triggers them off

Thats a complicated question. The answer works on a few levels.

First is calorific, most worms are quite fatty,given extra calories fish find themselves in a position to actually breed, second is behavioural ,the glut of live food would indicate to a fish that insects are in a major breeding season, thus allowing their young ample food for the next few weeks , so they go for it as soon as possible to make sure the fry have food, and lastly its hormonal too, worms , being the randy, perpetually changing and quick maturing species that they are, are loaded with tiny amounts of growth hormones , and enzymes used for their own reproduction and rapid maturity. Many enzymes are absorbed by the fish, often in effect making them a little more promiscuous than they might otherwise be.


Its not uncommon for some species that wont breed readily in the hobby to be given hormones that they would in nature get from specific dietary sources.

In the wild, these fishes correlate spawning with, among other factors, availability of food. When food becomes abundant, that's probably the right time to start raising fry.

This usually coincides with the rainy season in tropical locales. Which, in turn, means the washing of assorted interesting items into rivers and lakes (worms being among the items likely to be thus washed into the watercourse). Additionally, the appearance of the rains usually triggers the breeding of millions of invertebrates - including many with aquatic larval stages. Thus mosquitoes lay millions of eggs, producing in turn millions of larvae, midges generate a burgeoning population of larvae (Bloodworms in the case of Chironomid midges!), freshwater amphipods such as Crangonyx and Gammarus species start producing masses of offspring, and so the scene is set for the sudden appearance of a VERY well stocked fish larder.

additionally, those live foods, having themselves loaded their guts with nutrients from their own feeding, are in turn very nutritious to the fishes that eat them. All of which goes toward conditioning the fishes to the point where they're able to breed. A sudden glut of food in terms of quantity, combined with increased nutritional value per individual food item, provides an excellent basis for fishes to begin breeding. Indeed, in anticipation of this, many fishes use environmental cues related to the onset of the rainy season to co-ordinate their spawning activity - Corydoras and their propensity to spawn following a water change and a temperature drop is an excellent example. However, Cichlids are more advanced fishes, with intricate social behaviours and a levgel of intelligence that is the envy of many other fishes, so they may even be capable of making inferential judgements based upon environmental cues, so that, for example, the fish thinks "Yum, that was especially tasty" and starts thinking that since the good times are now rolling, it's time to think about founding a dynasty.

For that matter, humans display behaviour like this as well in many instances. A man and a woman are more likely to consider the patter of tiny feet when the good times are rolling, the household enjoys a substantial income and few outgoings, than during the lean times - at least they are if they're sensible! So it's not surprising that when you give your fish an abundance of live food and earthworms (all of which are highly nutritious and indicative in the wild of times of plenty) they strt spawning. Big Cichlids become inordinately attached to earthworms as a food (rich, meaty, full of goodness if you're a Cichlid and tasty into the bargain) to the point where they will attempt to condition their owners into providing nothing BUT earthworms if the owners let them!

In the light of all of this, it should not be in the least bit surprising that within a few days of your being lavish with the live food, your Cichlids are setting to founding large dynasties in an attempt to capitalise upon your generosity.

Basically, if you want your fishes to breed, live foods are likely to be the number one contributor to success when all else fails, unless of course the fishes in question have obscure spawning triggers that haven't been discovered yet. With Cichlids, abundant food, space, the right kind of decor and clean water are usually more than sufficient to result in the patter of tiny fins on an epic scale.

With your Cichlids, a week spent carpet bombing them with live foods and dangling earthworms in there tells them that the good times are rolling with a vengeance, and that now is going to be a GREAT time to fill the world with several thousand of their babies. Throw in the nutritional value of teh live foods (which helps gear up the Cichlids' bodies for the energy expensive business of spawning and rearing young), and the picture is more or less complete.

In the case of large Cichlids, of course, their larder is even more expansive - they can take on things such as dragonfly larvae and water beetles, so the appearance of a few crunchy treats of that kind in the home of a breeding pair of large Demspeys or Oscars is going to have a similar effect. And, of course, I've already mentioned the old Innes book tip about using these things to strengthen pair bonds and parental instincts, giving the parent fishes the double satisfaction of destroying enemies of their young and filling their bellies with something nice and crunchy and appetising into the bargain. In the case of a big pair of Oscars, or even better, Jaguar Cichlids (because they're juggernauts among the more widely available Cichlids) they're capable of dismantling fully grown Dytiscus water beetles with ease, and will probably do so with MUCH relish if given the chance. Likewise, a good way of kissing goodbye to surplus Amano shrimps is to pop them in a Cichlid tank - pretty soon the word will get around that there's shrimp burger on the hoof to be tracked down and devoured, and this too would probably trigger a spawning session.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

thanx heaps guys,2 great lots of good info.it works well for me being able to make them spawn,i use this method to get my convicts going,so i can feed there fry to my jds,and flowerhorn,its also so cost effective not having to buy feeders.