alright, my pair of jack dempseys laid eggs. i know when i had convict babies the eggs were laid white and when they were fertilized they turned light brownish. im guessing the same deal goes for other cichlids.

i cant get a good angle at the eggs, but they seem pink in color. they are on a brown cave, so its difficult to tell what color they are as well. there's a lot of eggs about a 5'' by 7'' area is covered there has to be over 500 eggs...

wish me luck!!

Congratulations! Good Luck! too.
In about 3-4 they will be swimmers. Do you have anything to to put them in once they become swimmers? I'm waiting for mine to do something again. Keep us posted.

You will need to feed the fry. You can muck about with shrimp, you get kits at shops and breed your own, or you can buy liquifry (in uk)for egg layers. Liquifry is loads easier and i know it works cause my convicts did fine on it. When the babies start to look like little fish feed crushed flake

i have the long plastic grass from when my convicts had babies. which i probally wont even need cuz jds are good parents. im not sure we have that liquifry or anything like it in the US. i used brine for my convicts and got very good results. hoping for the same with this tank.

the eggs are definatly light brown and will be hatching in a day or two. woot woot!

hmm...i got a problem. lots of aggression between the parents!! yesterday the much smaller female really beat the male up. the male would take an occasional peek over to their "house" we'll call it. and the female didnt want him there. of coarse the 9-10'' male didn't put up with this and attacked back. yesterday morning the 4.5'' female's attackes were relentless and she won won. for the rest of the day the male just cruised the tank, accept for the corner with the eggs.

just now, i turned on the lights and was lookin at the eggs. simular situation now, they are locking mouths and pushing back and forth. about even. i noticed something fly off the wall and on the ground. the eggs are hatching as we speak! the fighting has stopped. the female is moving the fry up top and the male is curiously watching.

i know mating can be violent, but i hope the fighting stops. if it doesn't i doubt the fry will live and i may possibly lose a fish. the tank is a 125 gallon tank and its just the 2 JDs.

Sounds like you are gonna have to keep a close eye on things. You can always take the eggs/babies out and grow them separately, but personally i dont see the fun in that. I think it is more interesting to see the babies in with the parent and to see the parents look after them

yeah, ill agree with that. watching the parents bring up the babies would be much more fun. i dont have a place to put the fish. i suppose i could give my friend the male temporarily but i would prefer not to.

since the eggs have hatched, there has been no fighting at all, thank god. the female is accepting the male again and they are watching over the hatched together.

they had me scared for a day or so there. the first day the male was beat up pretty bad. he had scrathes all over his face and side and some scales were falling off. he didnt look too happy....

but things are lookin good now. ill keep ya guys updated

its about a month since the eggs have hatched and im in very good shape. the babies are all over the tank, id say theres about 200 left over and they are about 1/4 an inch, maybe alittle bigger. The parents haven't faught at all since that day and ive found a couple people who would want some as they get bigger. right now they look like little fish with about 6 stripes goin down them. i saw one of the bigger ones today starting to get some spots. they are off the shrimp and eating flakes and pellets. looks like ive been sucessfull in breading them

congrats on your success. now all you need to do is figure out what to do with a couple hundred jacks

i figured even if 50 live, thats still a nice sized batch of fish. by the looks of things, im gonna have more. i found a store that would take them but wouldnt give me anything in return. the other stores wouldn't even take them for free (can u believe that?? thats ez money) a couple of my friends are takin some as well. and im tryin to find another big tank to at least grow them in. untill i find a suitible place for them (as well as keep as many as possible) or till i can add them into one of my other tanks.

now im not sure on this one. lets say i keep the babies in the tank. i know jacks are outstanding parents but would they ever eat or kill them? or is there a certain time that they must be removed? or can i begin to grow them in the same tank? if not ill just have to play it by ear.