The hunt for the TRUE Apistogramma cruzi

[Tom C]

Some might find it interesting to read the article I've published on our site today.
It's about my search for the true Apistogramma cruzi, in the Río Mazán-drainage in Peru.

The hunt for the true Apistogramma cruzi ( A83 ).

 

[bigbird]

Hello Tom,

I must say...wow ....congratulations on your determination to search for and breed the true Cruzi. Great report and pictures. I think a lot of are not aware of how hard it is to get the Apisto fish from their original habitat. I find the Apistos just a rainbow gift of perfection from heaven. Well done to you and your team on such a report. enjoy them and hope that the people in Europe now get access to the true Cruzi from you. cheers jks :biggrin:

 

[ste12000]

Tom i would like to say thank you..Without the dedication of people like yourself many species would be lost to us mere aquarists..I take my hat of to you and hope that one day i can keep and breed a few of the decendants of your wild fish.. Thanks for a very enjoyable read..

 

[fishme.]

that is a succes

congratulations

now ... how you send fish to greece ?

 

[bourdinite]

very very very very very big story and above all a great dream!
I languished you for this trip !
very beautiful pictures and especially magnificent collect cruzi!
I hope to one day be the offspring of your fish in my tanks!
thank you again for this story!

 

[Rolo]

WOW!

Congratulations, Tom. Great story, great pictures, great fishes.

Well, do you have fry and is Alf coming to Stuttgart? *hehe*

regards,
Rolo

 

[fishme.]

what is their behavior in the aquarium ?

 

[Tom C]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone

......now ... how you send fish to greece ?
.......
what is their behavior in the aquarium ?

Actually, last week I spent in Greece, in the lovely island of Chios
How do you manage to keep aquariumfish in Greece? In Chios, the temperature was 37°C (> 98°F) when I arrived!

Except for an alpha male that immediately killed 75% of the other fish in quarantine in one of my tanks, the rest behaves like other Apistogramma. Although the aggression level is quite high, there are no more casualties.

....Well, do you have fry and is Alf coming to Stuttgart? *hehe*

I have fry, and I also gave some to a very skilled breeder in UK, but they are not yet big enough to sex them.

Alf is collecting in Equador now, and as you know; in his search for Aquidens spp., he is at the "wrong" (Pasific) side of the Andes.

I think I saw something about Rolo going to French Guyana this year? Any particular species you'll try to find / bring home?

 

[fishme.]

my fishroom is in the basement and it is cooler than outside but 2 of my tanks reached 30 - 31 celcius . most of the hobbyists use pc fans

did you like chios ? actually this was the coolest summer i remember in the past 5 or 6 years (less than 5 days over 40 C but most of the days were at 33 to 35 C )

hope you did not have to do with any greek way clever greek at the tavernas and the tourist places

 

[Microman]

Yes i have approx 10 of these beautiful A cruzi growing on in my tanks at the moment. A pair formed from the largest male/female in the group and i have a spawning with a massive brood of 3 (Yes 3) freeswimming fry. More next time im sure as these fish are still very young.....
Thankyou Tom they are indeed a stunning species and one i am very proud to have in my tanks. We pay fortunes for some species such as A elizabethae,A miua,a mendezi and A diplotaenia etc but in my opinion these fish cannot hold a candle to the true A cruzi and the cost, in respect of the effort that went into its collection and Toms dedication to our hobby,is priceless....

(Ste12000 wrote)
I hope that one day i can keep and breed a few of the decendants of your wild fish..

You already have Steve.... Your male A elizabethae and also the A cf panduro (A184) pair are all decendants of fish kindly given to me by Tom.

Mark...

 

[Tom C]

……did you like chios ? actually this was the coolest summer i remember in the past 5 or 6 years (less than 5 days over 40 C but most of the days were at 33 to 35 C )
hope you did not have to do with any greek way clever greek at the tavernas and the tourist places

Really hot. I guess, in these temperatures, that you have problems getting any females from your broods ?
I love Greece, have been visiting different parts of Greece almost every year the last 30 years. And yes, I met some “clever†Greeks, the prices where sky high and almost 10 times higher than 20 years ago, when I first visited Chios.

 

[Tom C]

As I wrote in the A. cruzi article, in 2007 I also searched for, and collected, other species in the A.-eunotus-complex (and A.-cruzi-subcomplex).

I collected A. cf. eunotus between Iquitos and Nauta:

I collected A. cf. eunotus in the National Reserve of Pacaya Samiria (Rio Ucayali drainage):

I collected A. sp. aff. cruzi (Picuruyacu) in Picuruyacu:

I collected a form of A. sp. Nanay in Punchana:

I collected another form of A. sp. Nanay in the Rio Nanay drainage:

I collected yet another form of A. sp. Nanay in Laguna cuistococha:

And I got a still unidentified species of the A.-eunotus-complex from a biotop close to Nauta:

(Even though I had my focus on the A.-eunotus-complex this time, I also collected A. atahualpa in extreme blackwater in 3 different habitats, A, agassizii, A. cacatuoides, A. sp. “Schwarzbrust”, A. sp. “Blackchin, and lots of Lebiasinidae (Nannostomus, Copella and Copeina) and other Characins.)

 

[fishme.]

the only apistos who did breed in summer are my A. sp "masken" and they did it only once but the fry is still too young to sex them .

actually i am the only one i know who is constantly intrested in dwarves in Greece so i can't know from other people what was the sex ratio of their fry. most of the people who get dwarves place them in planted tanks and they are not interested in breeding them

for the prices in greece i can say that they do raise them every summer and that is why some smaller islands get more people every year

i would like to meet amazon some day

what have i to know before i do it ?

i am really jealous of your fish in a good way :biggrin:

 

[TwoFishGuyz]

Apistogramma Cruzi

We have a bunch of cruzi in stock that originally came from Tom, we think. We got them from Julio Melgar. If anyone is interested, they are in our shop www.twofishguyz.com

 

[Microman]

Im sure Tom/Mike will clarify but the fish in your pics dont look like the true A cruzi to me.... Your fish show vertical markings in the caudal which is not a feature of A cruzi.
I dont think Tom has collected enough specimens for them to be commercially available and i think he has only passed a few F1 fish onto one or two hobbyist breeders in Europe.
I was lucky enough to get a dozen F1s from Tom.
I could of course be completely wrong though.....
Mark...

 

[pleurothallid]

Tom,
Those are wonderful pictures, thanks for posting them. I've been to almost all of those places, though before I had much interest in fish at all. We caught some things for fun, especially around Lagunas but I didn't know what I was looking at. Did you happen to ever go around the Huallaga? I've spent a lot of time there but never was able to identify any of the Apistogramma we've seen-- particularly from Chazuta to Achinamisa (Aguas Termales region).

 

[Tom C]

......the fish in your pics dont look like the true A cruzi to me....
I dont think Tom has collected enough specimens for them to be commercially available and i think he has only passed a few F1 fish onto one or two hobbyist breeders in Europe......

I agree with Mark, this fish seems to be slightly different from the ones I collected.
And the fish is not from me; so far Mark (Microman) is the only one that has decendants from the fish I collected in the Rio Mazán drainage

.... I've been to almost all of those places, though before I had much interest in fish at all.... Did you happen to ever go around the Huallaga? I've spent a lot of time there but never was able to identify any of the Apistogramma we've seen-- particularly from Chazuta to Achinamisa (Aguas Termales region).

Very interesting! I've never collected in the Rio Huallaga drainage.
I'm only aware of 3 species from this area:

A. baenschi , A. rositae, and A. cf. eunotus (Rio Huallaga).

Did you collect any of these ?

In just a few days I'm leaving for the Amazon again, "as usual" I'll spend the whole month of October collecting apistos in Peru. Who knows, maybe I'll end up collecting in the Rio Huallaga this time?

 

[pleurothallid]

I've never collected, I'm in those regions for doing research and I usually don't have much time to look around when I'm going down the Huallaga, but I've seen some neat stuff in some side streams when hiking. When you were in Lagunas did you go much in that one side blackwater river just past the park? I can't recall the name but we spent a little time there and saw a Harpe eagle not far down and some neat fish. Unfortunately both of us ended up getting really sick, I think that's where I got Dengue the second time. The killies there are also really neat.

 

[Ttw]

Tom
I just returned from a collecting trip up the Rio Tigre. Your article goes a long way toward describing just how difficult it is collecting these fish. May I ask how you get your fish home? We collected alot of different Eunotus complex fish, along with other apistos, which we carefully cataloged as to water conditions and locale. However we had a local exporter ship our fish to us and he threw all the eunotus types together. In addition he carelessly bagged and shipped the fish so that fully half the fish died. Luckily some interesting and beautiful species did survive. I am interested in how you recommend getting the fish home.

 

[RAF]

Fantastic trip and excellent results no matter how hard it was to find the fish...

... I'm still wondering, since I'm planing a few expeditions in the future myself, what is required to bring these fish from their origin and in to Europe?

(... my trip, if I can manage to pull the necessary funds for it... will be to more southern territories - Argentina and/or Uruguay - to try and find Geophagus, Crenicichla, Laetacara and Apistogramma species that can be kept in outside ponds during the soft winter in southern europe... for now me and a fellow aquaristis are breeding Gymnogeophagus meridionalis outside )

Best regards