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I have a pair of Blue Convicts that are breeding quite profusely. I dont have room for the one set of fry they've produced, if this continues, I don't even know where I'll be able to GIVE them to. Is there anything I can do to control the population? Separating them is out of the question, and I don't really want to get rid of them. Is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks,
Tankster

Do you have other fish? There fry would make good feeders. Other than seperating them there isnt much you can do to stop convicts from breeding. I wouldnt take the fry away from them if you have no where to put them. That will keep them from having a new batch soo soon.

HTH

I do have other fish, but they are quite small, and I don't even know if they'd eat the fry. They're quite peaceful, and the fry are almost too big for them by the time they are swimming. I thought I could get a fish to put in the tank with them that would pick off the fry as time went on, but I don't know of any fish that could stand up to them when they're protecting the fry. Plus I don't want to cause unnecessary fish-fighting.

Easy solution. When you see the fish guarding a clutch of eggs, pull it and rinse the eggs away. Flush the drain with very hot or boiling water and the eggs should be rendered dead.

Just take the eggs out, let them dry out for 10-15 minutes, and put them back in. The eggs will be dead, and parents will most likely loose interest.

yes, I do suppose that would work, in fact, the thought had occured to me before, although, I was trying to find a way to solve this without such a....brutal? method. I realize using them as feeders woulndn't be much better, but at least it would be something that would happen in the wild. I know it sounds stupid, but I hate the idea of simply killing them because their parents can't help themselves.

Could U perhaps remove either the male or female convict and sell it back to the fish store? That would prevent this problem in the first place.
I dont know about where you live, but here, NO fish stores will buy convict fry. They breed like rabbits, and produce twice as many young, no fish store has room for all the locally bred convict fry in my area. In fact, when a friend of mine sold the fish store all his fish, the store only gave him 2 bucks each for the adult convicts, too hard to sell, too many in the area.


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all I do when I face this same senerio is do not feed the convicts until the fry are all eaten, they will only protect them until there belly starts to growl then it is lunch time for the parents

The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an bacon and egg breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."