Things You'll Need:
- 30 - 50 gallon fish tank
- your choice of African cichlids
- fry holding tanks
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Step 1
First, you will need a 30 - 75 gallon fish aquarium. It will need a filter, heater, lighting, a sand substrate, and possibly some rocks for decoration and/or caves. (And of course water)
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Step 2
You will now need to decide what kind of cichlids you want to breed. There have several hundred kinds to choose from. The main categories include: mbuna, haps, and peacocks. I personally like the more colorful variety.
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Step 3
Once you figure out what species you want, you will need to find a place to buy them. There are several places on the internet that I like to buy the fish from. All you have to do is do a internet search for the species you want to buy. For a 30 gallon tank I would suggest you get 1 male and about 5-6 females. For a 55 gallon tank I would suggest that you get 2 males and 10-12 females. The bigger the tank, the more males you can get.
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Step 4
Once you get adult fish, you can usually begin breeding VERY quickly!
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Step 5
After you begin breeding, once the female cichlids begin holding fry (and after about 3 weeks) you can 'strip' the females of the babies into the separate holding tank that you have set up just for the fry. You can get 20-100 fry out of one female!
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Step 6
Once you have done this and allowed the fry to grow to about 1 inch, you can sell the fry to local pet shops or random people! It is a great way to make some extra cash!
Comments
dorothyfisher said
on 9/6/2009 Wow! This is really a very informative post. I have been looking for an article on how to breed african cichlids. I finally stumbled in a site that offers helpful techniques and guides on how to raise an African Cichlid. Thanks
http://fishy-whisperer.com/CichlidFishSecretsReview.html
jt00082 said
on 4/28/2009 That's interesting!