I got a male and female firemouth cichlids and there in a 55 gallon tank with a pleco and thats it when will.?

Question

they breed or mate? and what temp does it need to be (it stays around 80-82 degrees farenhiet). there diet is cichlid pellets,flakes and some romaine lettuce every now and then. just need to know when will they breed and how long she will be pregnant and how many babies she will have?

Answer 1

you might check out www.cichlidzone.com ask on the forums there.

Answer 2

There is no way anyone is going to be able to tell you when a fish is going to breed.  Fish breed when they are ready really.  You can very well have sexually mature fish, give the right diet, but have your water parameters off, or have other fish interfere with the breeding process ect...  One thing you are not listing also is the age of your fish too.  

I think you have the right sized tank, and whatever pleco you have may become an issue, or it may not.  If this is the common type, that outputs large waste and just simply takes up space, I'd remove it.  I believe Firemouths are nest builders/egg layers, not mouth brooders.  I might be wrong on that, but if they lay eggs, a large pleco is going to be a challenge to fend off.  That might cause some delays in your fish breeding.

However, your male and female may well already be full grown adults, and ready to go, this could happen as early as next week, or next year, you really can't tell.  What I would reccomend doing though, and this works very well with my Africans breeding, give them a heavy protein feeding at nights before you turn the lights off for the night.  I've found that increasing the temps, as you've done, combined with increasing the proteins has spurred on breeding in my Africans.