# My male texas cichlid has paired up with a female convict.



## scubasteveRFC (May 28, 2010)

Any idea what the offspring will be like? Any1 had this pairing before and had offspring?


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## aquariam (Feb 11, 2010)

I'm pretty sure it can happen. I would personally vaccuum the eggs before they hatched and feed them to my fish. I don't think it's a good idea- you'd end up having 100+ fish to give away or sell- and who knows what will happen then? If they look enough like a purebred fish someone else will breed them and everything goes kerput. We have a horrible situation in North America with yellow labs (which are African but this is a good example. It is very difficult to get pure specimens because too many people have carelessly alowed them to interbreed with other similar fish and the market is rife with hybrids which are difficult to spot.

I've heard of texas and convicts pairing and hatching fry. A lot of things that don't look like they'd be compatible are. Completely different genus and everything.


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## xXGrEeNxTeRrOrXx (Jan 25, 2006)

Texas cichlids and convicts cichlids can produce viable fry. I've done it myself (by accident). The cross that I ended up with would not have been mistaken as a pure species of either by even the average cichlid hobbyist, but as far as I have seen they can look different from pair to pair. In other words, my pair spawned and the hybrids looked like oddly shaped convicts with some blue spangling all over their bodies, but another pair might spawn and the fry might look like texas cichlids with some odd barring.

Either way, you will not have 'hundreds of fry' to get rid of. Most crosses that occur result in massive losses as a result of the crossing. There are many eggs that will not hatch, and there will be even more fry that do not survive as a result of the mismatched genes. My pair (male texas, female convict) spawned three times and I struggled to keep the fry alive. I kept three until they were about 3 inches.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

They are called "texicons"


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## Beo (Jan 26, 2008)

I had a similar experience with my male carpintis and female convict on at least three separate occasions, as illustrated below:










I left the fry with the parents who looked after them very well, until it was time to produce some more . . .

I kept three in order to satisfy my curiosity, the largest of which is now about 3.5" total length. My only comment at this stage is that the offspring are dull brown/barred convict look alikes with psychotic tendencies. . .

We'll see how they progress, but I shall not be releasing them to the hobby!

The parents have subsequently undergone a forced separation to prevent any further hybridisation!


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## CoolCichlid (Feb 12, 2010)

TheFishGuy said:


> They are called "texicons"


It's cute, is that for real?


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

CoolCichlid said:


> TheFishGuy said:
> 
> 
> > They are called "texicons"
> ...


Unfortunately... Yes...


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