BREEDING YOUR CONVICTS

    Convicts spawn approximately 7-10 times yearly.  Convicts are an egg laying species.  When ready to lay eggs, the female's lower belly will become bright orange, a flesh egg tube will be present, and her colors will be at their fullest (usually takes place around each full moon).  At this point, it takes about 3-4 days until the eggs are laid, the male then fertilizes the eggs.  Not long from then when the eggs are laid will the fry hatch (approximately 3-4 days) and soon you'll have hundreds of Convict fry in your tank!  You have to make sure that there are enough hiding and spawning places in the tank where your Convicts can take cover in case things go rough in the tank and a place for the female to lay her eggs.
   
    Convicts become extremely territorial during spawning, they will attack other fish in the tank and a lot of times each other.  If necessary, you can place target fish such as the Zebra Danio in the tank so that the pair will have something to chase around instead of each other.  Convicts are very over-protective when it comes to having fry, generally the male is more over-protective than the female.  To easily put it, just sit back and relax and let the miracle happen.

FEEDING YOUR CONVICTS

   Feeding your Convicts should not be made difficult at all.  They say that Convicts are the easiest to keep and breed and I agree with them on that.  Convicts can be fed Cichlid floating pellets, Brine shrimp and many other small live foods available from your local pet store.   I feed mine a mixture of Goldfish flakes and Cichlid floating pellets.

    Feeding Convict fry are very easy also because for the first couple of weeks they need not be fed because of the yolk sac that they have and when they're free swimming is when you can feed them finely crushed flake foods.  In the meantime, the parents will help break up the food and make sure it gets to all of the babies.   Feeding them baby brine shrimp will make them grow faster also.