Topic: breeding colors

[JBa3fan]

in my 29 gal tank I have 2 male and one female con  that have been taking turns breeding ......  this time the male that  is the  father  is not showing his colors very well .  and the other male is showing good colors  but keeps hidden in the log away from the other two ..  does this make sence?

[JC]

uhhh how badly beat up does the stand by get?

Kind of makes sense as i've seen some female cons get pretty fickle and will always go for the male wiht the most attitude. Leaves me to think that one of the males gets spread quite thin after looking after each batch and defending the territory, while the convalescing male gets stronger and stronger over tha tperiod, ready to take over as the female is approaching the next spawn session.

Are you concerned at all over the fish's health or anything like that or were you just wondering if that was typical behaviour?

[fnesr]

Colour fade (greying) is a normal trait that will come and go with cons. It's generally mood based in my experience and doesn't have a lot to do with health most of the time.

I'd fully advise against keeping two males and one female together if possible though, it's not a good set-up. Two fems to one male can sometimes work ok but having two rival males competing for one female is looking for trouble.

[JBa3fan]

these cons were for  cycling a tank and I didn't expect them to survive  :-[  or even become mates  my original cons  for the  90 gal and another jd were put into then 45 gal that these fish cycled  because now I know that the  90 was and is still  overstocked..  when I moved them to the  29 gal  to cycle it for the firemouth or one of the  2 green terrors  they right away started to mate again in uncycled water .. we didn't want to get attached to these cons  but you know how it goes .  so  they have taken over this tank now and my  90 is still overstocked        maybe I should have cylcled the tanks with goldfish insted

 anyone want some cons? 

I was juist asking if it was normal for the 3rd wheel to  have better colors then the mateing  pair

Colour fade (greying) is a normal trait that will come and go with cons. It's generally mood based in my experience and doesn't have a lot to do with health most of the time.

I'd fully advise against keeping two males and one female together if possible though, it's not a good set-up. Two fems to one male can sometimes work ok but having two rival males competing for one female is looking for trouble.

 when I got these fish I told them to give me the  ones most likely not to be sold  because they were to be used for cycling 

uhhh how badly beat up does the stand by get?

Kind of makes sense as i've seen some female cons get pretty fickle and will always go for the male wiht the most attitude. Leaves me to think that one of the males gets spread quite thin after looking after each batch and defending the territory, while the convalescing male gets stronger and stronger over tha tperiod, ready to take over as the female is approaching the next spawn session.

Are you concerned at all over the fish's health or anything like that or were you just wondering if that was typical behaviour?

they don't seem to be beat up at all they do chase the other one away   but don't beat up on  him



I hope I did this quoting  right ....  don't think I have figured it out yet   and thanks for your posts JC and Fnesr

[fnesr]

I hear you on them taking over, I need to get rid of convicts aswell . You might at some stage soon need to rearrange to split up the sexes somehow though. With the way they inbreed you may eventually end up with just too many to accomodate.

With the colour I've noticed it can change fairly indiscrimately and it's hard to really judge what is going on. To have a guess I would say it could be because he is not the chosen partner, he is showing off his darker colours in an attempt to sway the females choice to him or as an attempt to challenge the other male. With the male that is the father, he may not be displaying full colouring because he has no need to impress the female (due to the fry) and at the moment is dominant and not threatened.