wanting to buy some black convicts

[darick_blackcon]

hello my name is darick. ive been tryin to get these common cichilds at the local pet stores-but seems either they cant get them or wont,so i was hopeing some breeder could help me out i would look to buy maybe 10-20 of them,of course paying shipping price.if people could get back to me on this or maybe give me the email or phone number of a US black convict breeder

i would be most thankfull



darick

[Cichlid Man]

Convicts are very apealing. I hope you find some.
What sized tank do you have?

[darick_blackcon]

i have a few my favorites is my 75s.i hope to cross breed convicts and red terrors. in my 40gallon

[leveldrummer]

have you checked petsmart, the one here almost always has convicts in stock.

[Cichlid Man]

Originally Posted by darick_blackcon

i have a few my favorites is my 75s.i hope to cross breed convicts and red terrors. in my 40gallon

Good luck, breeding two different species together is very difficult.

[ron v]

Originally Posted by Cichlid Man

Good luck, breeding two different species together is very difficult.

Especially since one is a 12" fish and the other is 4". The bigger question is "WHY".

[Cichlid Man]

Originally Posted by ron v

Especially since one is a 12" fish and the other is 4". The bigger question is "WHY".

+=
They look pretty bland as youngsters, but may get a little color when older. Who knows?

[darick_blackcon]

i think people misunderstoud me i dont want some petco fish farm cons
i want tank raised beautys.perfect bars colours i mean vibrante colours

[redpaulhus]

I suspect that anybody willing to truly "breed" convicts (ie culling for color and conformation, not 'just add water and watch'm multiply') would be unlikely to co-operate in an attempt to add yet another hybrid cichlid into the world.

Especially since at least a few cichlid-nuts I know suspect that there is a fair amount of nigrofasciatus genes in the 'bloody parrot' frankenfish. Who wants to be the great-great-grand father of the next "bloody parrot" or "flowerhorn" type controversy ?

I've generally found that the people who would be willing to breed a cichlid strain for color (etc) and who are interested in "Cryptoheros/Archocentrus" tend to go for a more rare fish - saijica, Honduran red-points, etc. (at least in my area).

[darick_blackcon]

if i could do it.not saying i could but i would more then likely kill all the babys off but a hand-full for my own tanks, i dont sell fish i dont breed my fish to sale,but hey people do do that and thats kool.Maybe one day i can sell some nice fish but i would only sell pure breed fish.but hey if someone has done this and can assist me in breeding these it would be very nice to have a hand ot a mentor to look up to about the situation

[Cichlid Man]

Hybrids are only good in the aquarium trade if they are better in terms of their size or color overall than their parents. Most hybrid fish are frowned upon deeply in the aquarium trade. Especially ugly ones.

[ron v]

I'm sorry folks. I was gonna refrain from stating my opinion in this thread, but I just can't help it. This is one of my "hot button" issues. I am violently opposed to ANY hybrids in the aquarium hobby. I know what I think is not going to change anyone's mind, but I can't just not say anything. One day we will all wake up and go down to our lfs and find one cichlid for sale. It will be a hybrid mix of every cichlid that ever existed. ( little exaggeration maybe, but hopefully you get my point ).

[darick_blackcon]

well really if u dont wanna help me why are u posting on here still,i wanted help not a hender,or someone trying to discourage me from doing something that i wanna do sorry if thats the way u feel but im sure not all of us in the world feel the same way,if i cross breed for my own tanks fine i do it i dont sell it.thats where people make mistakes,so come on find someone else to rag on

[ron v]

I'm sorry darick. I'm not "ragging" on you. It's just something that really bothers me. I have no reason to doubt that you are responsible enough to keep any hybrids out of the hobby. You did mention it before I did, so I'm sure you are aware of the problem.
Many people that create a hybrid that turns out looking great ( like a flowerhorn for example ), can't resist the $$$$$ that could come! If I had a couple of hundred hybrid red terror x convict babys that someone wanted to pay $40-$50 each for, I would sell them in a minute, Not a lot of people would be able to resist that.

[Lisachromis]

Originally Posted by ron v

I'm sorry folks. I was gonna refrain from stating my opinion in this thread, but I just can't help it. This is one of my "hot button" issues. I am violently opposed to ANY hybrids in the aquarium hobby. I know what I think is not going to change anyone's mind, but I can't just not say anything. One day we will all wake up and go down to our lfs and find one cichlid for sale. It will be a hybrid mix of every cichlid that ever existed. ( little exaggeration maybe, but hopefully you get my point ).

Here here! I completely agree. Why make a new fish when the 'normal' ones are all beautiful as they are. If they want changes, linebreed them, just like goldfish.

[darick_blackcon]

why does it matter if i want a new breed seems to me its not a new breed.so i dont really see the harm if i dont sell them,or give them away and beyond all that i wanna let u know that i dont run community tanks,i run predator tanks, i feed all my fish live foods.or frozen so chances arent great for the fry,so lets say i have 100fish from the cross,so maybe 50% lives ok now lets think of the fish i run in here,oscarsx4 green terrorx3 black convictsx12 african somethinsx2 red belly pacu salvinax4 midasx2 texas cichildsx2 and also 2red terrors ok so lets say now 5 of those 50 babys live
come on
for aweek or two now lets say 1 maybe lives for breif glimmer of a momment,ok lets say now that maybe realisticly that 5 6 live,let me tell u after all the time it would take to see all this happen i wont wanna sell my babys,considering i have alrdy stated i like these two breeds the best and now have seen a pic of wat it may look like,or may not,but i willing to take the chance ,i have no need to make the profit from wat some call mutt fish,it can be my mutt and i will call them betty's

[darick_blackcon]

oh yea i like how the theroy of the one man who cross breeds,his cichilds seems to be the end of a pure breed lines

[ron v]

Purity of species is either an issue with you or it's not. There is no "right or wrong" answer, it's an opinion. You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. No one is going to try to stop your experiment, but if you choose to discuss it on this forum, I have a right ( maybe even an obligation ) to voice my disfavor. I want other members of this forum, that maybe have not yet formed an opinion, to know that some prople are opposed to what you are doing.

[redpaulhus]

I'm of two minds on hybrid fishes.

On the one hand - if we didn't have hybrids, we wouldn't have 95+% of the livebearers in LFS today - most "swords" and "platies" you find in stores have both swordtail and platy genes, its rare to find a true wild-type sword or platy.
How about all of the "OB pea****s" I'm seeing lately ? I was told that the OB comes from a wee bit of OB zebra someplace in their ancestry...

Discus and Angels - are any of the commonly cultivated discus or angel strains "true" wild-type strains ? Or are they hybrids of different closely related species (ie Heckel discus x blue discus cross, altum x scalere, etc ?)

And what about intra-specific hybrids ? Is it good or bad to cross Pelvicachromis teaniatus 'molowi' with P. taeniatus 'wouri' ? They're both considered the same species, but from different locations -- isn't that what we've been doing for 50+ years with most of the SA\CA cichlids ?
How many times have I been told to make sure I add some "outside" genes into a breeding program - "don't just breed fish from the same store or parents over and over, mix in some from another source."
What are the odds that two different groups of firemouths are from the same original wild location ? If I cross a firemouth line that has better color with one that has better fins, am I actually crossing fish who's ancestors were from different wild populations ? Am I creating intra-specific hybrids ?

I wonder what the SA/CA cichlid scene would look like if it was handled with the same mentality as the killifish and west african cichlid parts of the hobby ? Would I have three tanks with three strains of firemouth, like I do with "kribs" and their relatives ?

On the other hand - I'd like to remove all of the poor deformed "bloody parrots" and flowerhorns from the hobby forever. (and the moron flowerhorn owners who come into the store asking me where they can get steroids for their flowerhorns, "cuz they're not growin fast enough" - maybe that's because you have too small a tank, don't change water enough, and are pushing the diet too far towards high fat foods instead of balanced nutrition ?)

[ron v]

So you are in favor of hybrid swordtails but against flowerhorns???? Sounds like you are sort-of undecided on your stance. Course that's what you said. That's OK. It's kind of hard to know exactly where to draw the line, so the line doesn't get drawn and we continue down the same path. As I said you are either for it or against it.