# Convict Spawning



## chscoleg (Oct 26, 2009)

I believe y female convict laid eggs Sunday night inside of a clay pot. Well I am new to this type of fish and I believe it has spawned due to the fact all day sunday it was inside the clay pot. There is an area on the side of the pot that seems to be where the eggs are. The are very small and I would say they are like a clear/grey color. The female now spends the entire day in the pot so they must be eggs. I now wonder when should I expect the eggs to hatch if they will hatch and if they are not fertile, when will the female leave the pot?
Thanks ahead of time for all those who can help me out!


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## Lancerlot (Feb 22, 2006)

simple question do you have a male convict in the same tank?

Read the sticky in this forum if you want any info on convicts


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## chscoleg (Oct 26, 2009)

I do believe so.... I have no idea how to tell besided the fact that the other convict lack any color besides the bars


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

Female Convicts have red/orange bellies, males have no red/orange on their bellies...

Eggs are clear/white/grey when laid... and turn brown/pink/red when fertilized...

They blend in very well with the color of the surface of the clay pot...

Eggs take 3~4 days to hatch... newly hatched babies (called wigglers) still have a yolk sac attached to them and cannot swim. They just sit on the bottom and wiggle (it's flippin adorable).

They are wigglers for about 3~4 days and then become free swimming. There is a short stage that only lasts a few hours which I call them "hoppers". This is when they first start swimming but don't really get the hang of it (super adorable).

But all in all it takes about a week to go from fresh eggs to lil baby fish swimming around the tank...

While they are wigglers you will not need to feed them as they are still living off of the yolk sac.

The mother (and maybe father too) will move the wigglers all over the tank/territory. From what I see, I believe it is easier to clean a new spot, then move the babies, than it is to keep the spot the babies are in clean.

Breeding is a wonderful interesting process to watch take place. The rough part is you are likely to become attached to the babies that result, which will quickly overburden your tank and are quite hard to rehome. Convicts are very very simple to breed and the offspring have a high survival rate.


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

Oh, I forgot to mention... if they are not fertilized, they will turn a fuzzy white (not clear white) within 24 hours and will disintegrate shortly after...


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## Riceburner (Sep 3, 2008)

Connie with her eggs...









fertile eggs...









wrigglers...



























fry...









how's that for the life cycle in pictures...


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## chscoleg (Oct 26, 2009)

Thanks for all the info...tonight will be 2 days since the eggs were laid. So if they are still around they should be fertilized then right?


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

chscoleg said:


> Thanks for all the info...tonight will be 2 days since the eggs were laid. So if they are still around they should be fertilized then right?


If it's been a full 48 hours, yes... If it's been a bit over 24, maybe...

If they are infertile, they will look non transparent fuzzy white... as opposed to a translucent brown-to-pink-to-milky white...

I have Dempsey eggs in a tank right now and they are quite a bit pinker than the eggs pictured aboveâ€¦


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## chscoleg (Oct 26, 2009)

thanks toby! It has been a full 48 hours so I guess it now becomes a waiting game.


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## Riceburner (Sep 3, 2008)

another mass of eggs on a rock from the weekend are now a mass of wrigglers in the nursery log. Mine love that log...doesn't matter which end of the tank it's in...they go for it. :lol:


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