Central American Cichlids • Marble Convicts

[ohcustoms]

Does anyone out their know anything about "Marble Convicts" ?

I need to know origin? or how their created? I can't seem to find a whole lot of info online, maybe i'm not searching in the right places.

Their's some who say its a cross between a black and a pink convict. IMO I'm not so sure, I've had multiple spawns with this fish, never any picks, or blacks in the mix.

I would love to hear from the people out their who's breeding them also.

Please help, I need some info


Thanks

OHC.

[ssynesthesia]

Pink and black are the same exact cichlid except the pink one is the result of the recessive pink gene. From what I know anyway.

[Lancerlot]

They came from black cons. Recesive gene caused the pink. Marbles where selectivly breeded between the to. Then you got marbles. They are still cons, their not hyrbids.

[straitjacketstar]

You can't cross a pink and black and get marbles. Both parents, be they black x black or pink x pink or pink x black, must carry the gene. Some carriers of the gene express it quite obviously. Other don't or express very little if they do.

[ohcustoms]

I've bred convict for many years. Its been 5 or so years since I saw the marbled convicts. I found someone who wad them so I bought a few pairs.I've tried breeding Black/pink, fry from 2 B/P pairs and the combination goes on and on and on.
I'm trying to find out any info, serious information, not just people saying "Breed a black and pink" you'll get them. I don't think so!

I'm not sure but I HIGHLY doubt they cam from breeding a pick to a black IMO, however, with years of breeding it might be possible?



I'm trying to find out any info, serious information, not just people saying "Breed a black and pink" you'll get them. I don't think so!

OHC

[straitjacketstar]

A keen eye always helps.
Some cons carry the gene but don't express it, in which case you would never know unless you crossed it to one that you knew had the gene and the offspring or a percentage of the offspring turned out to express the gene.
Some cons barely express the gene at all!

This male exhibits only two black blotches above the ventral fins. Looked like a normal pink at 1/2" but as time progressed so did the black spots. Today these two spots are a bit larger but remain the only blotches on his body.


This female shows only a small black spot on the dorsal. Absolutely no other mark to tag her a "marble".


Both fish, when crossed with known marbles, give marble fry.

[Frameshift]

Look up codominance or incomplete dominance.

[ohcustoms]

Look up codominance or incomplete dominance.

Hmmmmm, I'm more confused now LOL



Jamie

[TheFishGuy]

I'd like to take a shot at answering this question. Like you ohcustoms I've been breeding cons for a very long time. 21 years to be exact My first breeding pair was when I was eleven. It was a male pink and a female black or grey convict. ( I tend to call the regular old striped ones grey convicts) Needless to say they spawned in my 15 gallon and it may have been the coolest thing I'd ever seen. My Dad bred angels and sea horses but I never paid attention

At any rate, the spawn resulted in some pink, some grey and some marble. To my Dads and the local pet stores knowledge they had never seen them before and both told me they wouldn't be worth much so I ended up feeding them to my brothers aligator gar Big mistake apparently Fifteen years later I was in a lfs and saw them for sale for 12.99 apiece and I almost died Grant it this stores prices always run high but you get what you pay for in my opinion. It was then that I decided I was going to make my own marble con like I had done in the past. My theory was that I needed to start with a pink male and grey male and see what happens. Well as you can guess nothing happened so I decided to do a little experiment. I decided that I'd slowly, generation after generation break down the grey gene. Well it worked... I think. Here's my story... I was doing water changes and at the time I didn not use lids on any of my tanks and I think a male popped over to the current breeding pairs tank and spawned with the female. Funny because all my tanks are painted for comfort of the fish so how did he know if he jumped he'd get lucky?? The result was a few marble fry from that spawn but I don't know if it was the male that jumped in who fertilized the eggs or the male that was with her.... Problem was I had know idea of the jumping males background or lineage That was almost two years ago now and since then all convict experiments have been haulted due to my sons being born and not having a lick of extra time. Not to mention the adiction to this website.... Curse you C-F!

Here's the problem. No one knows if pink cons existed in the wild before the seventies simply because all anyone ever says is they were "developed" by two gentlemen??? What the heck does that mean??? Now the problem is pink convicts do exist in the wild and so do marbles and they could care less who they breed with as long as they can breed. Some day, probably 10 years from now I will start experimenting with cons again but not until I've got more time... which will probably never happen At any rate I have come up with a con that rivals in color to an HRP and I still have the female that I talked about in the begining of this marathon post. I've also got one of her sons.... Some day... Some day...

So in short (besides frameshifts interesting point) I do believe you can get marbles from breeding a grey convict with a pink. But the grey has to have a reccesive pink gene that been bombarded by generation of breeding it in to it.

What I mean is to do this:

GF = grey female
PM = pink male
PMRG = pink male with reccessive grey gene
GFRP = grey female with recessive pink gene

GF X PM = GFRP

GFRP x PM (her father) = GFRP times two now

GFRP times two now x PM (her grandfather) = Some marble, some grey (very few) and mostly pink.

You follow? Problem is I can't prove it. The other problem is how do you get prove pink and grey convicts, meaning there's no way to know their lineage since everyone breeds them and lots of stores take the fry....

Basicly at this point it's going to be luck of the draw when trying to come up with marble cons. That's the short answer

Here's a few shots of mine:

This is a male as a result of the spawn in question:


This is a female with pink reccessive gene twice over if you get what I mean:


This is her daughter after spawning with her grandfater who was pink:



The (what I like to call electric blue convict or poor mans HRP) will be spawned with a male pink to see what comes out of it and she will also be spawned with the male marble that's pictured here for the fun of it...

I hope this helps in your quest but I doubt it

[mokofeyz]

This is interesting. Now I'm having the urge to get that pink con in the LFS.

[conoholic]

get it dont let the con go to an irresponable teen or fish abuser

[Ramirezi Altispinosis]

I am breeding a pink male who was the result of a black male and female pink spwning, with a straight-black (as far as I know) female. We'll see the results, shall we?

And by the way, TFG.... DAAAAAAAMN! I love your "electric blue con"

[con-man-dan]

i recently crossed a PF and GM and got nothing but grey juvi's! i had moved most of them to a seperate tank, the culls were eaten, and 3 somehow were left in the parents tank. I'm thinking about crossing what appears to be a lovely male with his momma to see what happens now that he'll have the pink gene, and the fry would have 2x pink gene, right?

You know, I'm even tempted, once I get 3-4 different wild strains of convicts to breed, taking a few of their F1's (just a few of each! maybe 4, 2f 2m) and crossing THEM with pinks to see what kind of colors come out. Some of the wild strains have AMAZING colors, I guess I can only get the fish and see what happens lol, not like cons are hard to breed

[ohcustoms]

I've been breeding the "Marble" Convict (MC) for some time now. I've noticed in the spawn theirs a few approx 10-25% that look like normal pink/white cons but, with 1 or 2 small black splotches / spots on them, these I cull out. I pick the best looking MC's and breed them, I'm slowly getting the strain honed in. I'm trying to get a male and female that produce a complete spawn thats all marbled. Its harder than you think!!!! I should be their in a year or 2 LOL. If you want to try to make them on your own, the best bet id to look for a pick con with 1 or more black spots on them, easier said than done.


I wouldn't breed F0's or F1's etc.... with fish you have no idea what they've been bred to? I would keep the strain pure. Just my opinion


OHC

[con-man-dan]

I wouldnt dare breed F0's with anything but F0's, plain and simple. However, convicts are convicts, and I'll likely have MANY to deal with, so why not see what happens with some of their kids breeding into a domestic line? Never know whats gonna happen. Its all just for fun anyways!

Has anyone ever seen true albino convicts?