Convict Cichlids - Cichlasoma Nigrofasciatum (I think might have been Archocentrus earlier) The convict is from Central America.
Found in Great Lakes of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and into Panama. It likes rocks, and usually spawns in caves (your upside down flowerpot). Its an omnivore, will eat insects, algae, shrimp, flake food, and your dinner scraps.
NEW - 7/30/2000 BUNCH OF FRY PICTURES of offspring of zebra convict and pink convict male.
Convicts are pretty aggressive fish and are famous for being very easy to breed. They grow to about six inches and can breed when they're two or 3" in size. The female is usually smaller, the male also has a more slanted forehead. The female will have easily noticeable orange-yellow on the belly when ready to spawn. They're a bit nervous and scare a lot easier than some of us are used to with oscars and such. Try to force them to use gravel for nesting sites instead of caves and you might get to see them more often instead of them hiding all the time from you. Once you force them to have to be more in the open they will seem to gain courage. When guarding eggs though, they will even try and attack you. They're quite fast, that's what impressed me, and it is really "cute" to see them mouth locking, especially if you're only used to see huge 8" monsters doing it (oscars). They can breed when they're even only 1" long really. I'd recommend you have a good sized male, 3.5" and like a 2" female. Leave them alone and they will take good care of their fry, don't worry about them eating the fry. At some point, the female will fight to keep control of the fry. It will fight with the male who wants to be the boss and guard the fry. I found that for example when I bred my big pink convict with another little smaller female pink convict, I later had to take the female out because it was very stubborn and was definitely losing the fight against the male for fry-ownership. When I bred the same big male pink convict with a much smaller "zebra"(regular) convict, they seemed to get along very well. The female knows she's #2 and knows to stay out of his way but they both work together and take care of the fry. The male was a much better pair with this small "zebra" convict than with the other female pink convict. As a rule if you want your pair to get along well, don't have an oddball convict in with them. Just keep the tank solely for the pair and their fry. Will be adding some pictures soon as I have some more time to clip them out of videotapes :)