How do jack dempseys breed

Named after the famous s boxer, Jack Dempsey, these fish were named after him because they shared his aggressiveness and strong facial features. Its scientific name has changed several times, and it was previously known as Cichlasoma , Heros , and Archocentrus. There is also an Electric Blue Jack Dempsey variant available in the aquarium hobby, which appears to be a mutation, and they tend to be slightly smaller than natural Jack Dempseys.

Native to Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras, these fish are found along the Atlantic coastal region. Jack Dempseys inhabit slow-moving water and are found in streams, rivers, lakes, canals, and bogs. In recent years, they have become established as an invasive species in the United States, Russia, and Thailand.

In the home aquarium, these fish usually live at least 10 years, with some living up to 15 years in a well-maintained fish tank.

A full-grown adult may reach up to 8 inches 20 cm in length. Jack Dempseys are notoriously territorial, generally intolerant of other fish, and will often bite tankmates.

The minimum recommended aquarium size for a pair of bonded Jack Dempseys is 55 gallons liters , but as they breed easily and often, they will soon require a much larger aquarium. To comfortably house a growing family of Jack Dempseys, a gallon liters fish tank should be provided. This gentler image we now have is in reference to the spots that sparkle in the light, and the stripes which run vertically down its body. These stripes, however, are not blatantly obvious on every fish, unlike the spots which really make the Jack Dempsey a showstopper.

Care wise the Jack Dempsey, perhaps surprisingly, is amazingly easy to keep providing you meet their basic requirements and are careful about the environment you choose for them. They do, however, need rather large aquariums which will mean they are not suitable for every home purely due to space.

Below is a rough guide to basic requirements of the Jack Dempsey rocio octofasciata for you to peruse including minimum tank size and the type of environment they need. The Jack Dempsey is undoubtedly a large thick-set species but not one that typically represents a predator. They are, in fact, far too pretty to be given that label regarding looks! The coloration of a Jack Dempsey will change as the fish matures. Usually, as a juvenile, they are light gray to tan developing into dark purple-gray as they age.

Markings will start as a faint turquoise fleck and develop into a very bright and iridescent bluish-green and gold flecks. The Jack Dempsey appears to sparkle like the morning dew.

The female of this species tends to be less colorful than the male and is in general smaller. Males reach approximately eight inches in length in the home aquarium whilst the female only reaches around six. The male also has a dorsal fin and anal fin with a long pointed tip whilst the female is more rounded. Interestingly, both sexes of Jack Dempsey will immensely darken in color to almost black when they are under stress.

It should be noted here that there is a second coloration type of Jack Dempsey which is the electric blue. Not surprisingly, it is much bluer in coloration. A debate, however, surrounds this mutation as it seems that it cannot be agreed upon how they developed. Some people claim it is just a plain and simple genetic mutation, whilst others believe it is the result of breeding the Jack Dempsey with other cichlid species. They have, however, also been found in the waters of Australia, Thailand, and other parts of America too.

This is not a natural territory nonetheless, rather they have been introduced into the water systems by people placing them there. Preferring hard alkaline waters the Jack Dempsey is most commonly found in the warm but sluggish waters in swampy areas, drainage ditches, canals, shallow rivers, and spring-fed lakes.

Should you be lucky enough to go seek them out be sure to comb through the weeds where they are most likely to be lurking. In their natural environment, Jack Dempseys feed upon worms, crustaceans, small fish, and various insects.

This was due to the species growing reputation as a bruiser of the aquarium, and its high levels of aggression. No fish, it was said, was safe in with this predator, which would have a pop at anything and everything! The truth, however, about this species is that the majority do not live up to the reputation that lingers with them. Yes, there are Jack Dempseys out there that are crazy aggressive and will attack anything and everyone but most actually will not.

A good description of the Jack Dempsey would be that it is calm but in an eccentric way, and has fairly good manners. This does not mean that they are suitable for a community aquarium as they are far from that.

They will, however, do well, in the main, in a mixed predator tank. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule and you need to be careful and monitor the behavior of your Jack Dempsey and other species together. Jack Dempsey can also be incredibly shy, especially when first introduced to an aquarium. You need a clay flowerpot or a flat piece of slate for the eggs. A thick layer of gravel is also recommended, because it harbors healthy bacteria.

Keep the tank at 76 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. The eggs will hatch two or three days after being fertilized. There are liquid fry foods available from pet shops and online aquarium supply stores that can help feed them. Once they get to half an inch long, then either they need to be placed in a smaller tank or the adults need to be removed. At a half-inch long, they begin to look less like baby Jack Dempseys and more like a good snack to the parents.

When the fry are a half-inch long, you can shift food to brine shrimp, microworms, commercial flakes and granules or a lumpy powder for cichlids. You can also grind adult fish food flakes into a powder for the small fry. Their resulting offspring should all then carry the blue gene. After a few mismatches, I did get some blue-gene fry from one of my pairs. I was impatient, however, and thought it would be better to get some juvenile blue-genes from a different bloodline.

I was able to purchase some from an online auction. The seller was already producing a nice strain of electric blue Jack Dempseys from his efforts.

After I won the auction, I realized that I had actually met this person earlier after reading his link on Cichlid-forum. His name is Randy Sorenson, and he lived not too far from me in the San Diego area. I had traded some of my blue-gene Dempseys with him for some of his blues. This was before he was successfully producing an electric blue Jack Dempsey strain. Anyway, I once again drove down to his place and purchased some young electric blues and blue-gene Jack Dempseys for breeding stock.

I let this group grow for a few months until they were sexable. The color changes in the blue specimens were very interesting. They turned from blotched to more of a speckled blue pattern. I have seen solid blue fish, blotched blue fish, and speckled blue fish. I raised the blue specimens separately from the blue-genes so that the electric blues could catch up in size to the blue-gene juveniles.

When both groups were comparable in size, I put them all together in a gallon tank.