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Spawning in the wild frequency?

allentwnguy

Member
Messages
47
Hi guys/gals. I was wondering if anyone has read any articles about Apisto's wild spawning habits. I ask this because my cacs just keep on spawning. I started with 2 pair that turned out to be one female and 3 males in August 2016. One male was chased out of the tank. I don't know how he got through the small opening but I found him dried up one morning. The alpha male bullied the other male until he holed up in a coconut hut and wouldn't come out. He got stressed, got a fungal infection and is now blind and lives in a 10gal by himself. That brings me to mamma and Big Daddy (C'mon I know you name your fish too!).

She had her first brood that September and has had 7 since. I have 15 males left from 3 broods ago, I just shipped out 57 juvies from her last spawn only to have her trot out another batch the day before the 57 shipped out. She just goes after the male as soon as her fry start free feeding to have more.

I don't want her to burn out. I'm guessing spawning is the wild is triggered by the seasonal change in water parameters when food is known to be getting abundant. This little girl breeds just about every other month. I want to pull the male but I don't want to stress him out or him to lose interest in her.

Any wisdom?
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
343
In the aquarium, most cichlids spawn every 3-6 weeks. Frequent feeding, warm water, and good water quality almost ensures they spawn. If you don't want more fry, separate the pair.

As far as how often wild Apistogramma spawn, I think it is seasonal from what I have gleamed from Tom and Mike.
 

allentwnguy

Member
Messages
47
In the aquarium, most cichlids spawn every 3-6 weeks. Frequent feeding, warm water, and good water quality almost ensures they spawn. If you don't want more fry, separate the pair.

As far as how often wild Apistogramma spawn, I think it is seasonal from what I have gleamed from Tom and Mike.

Thanks for reinforcing. I guess I pretty much knew the answers! If you keep Apistos I find you tend to do a lot of reading. I only keep 4 species and 2 forced me to do a lot of reading sp tefe and my alto tapiche. All 4 have bred. Now here's a scary thought.... mine have produced a few hundred fry. One female alone, the one in question, have given me 250+ fry. What happens when everyone that wants to keep apistos has them???
 

allentwnguy

Member
Messages
47
What do you mean exactly? Can you explain what "them" are? By "everyone that wants to keep apistos" do you mean the people, who want to just keep apisto pairs but not reproduce them?

It was a rhetorical question. But them are apistos and I don't think people can keep a pair (male and female) of apistos in the water parameters they like without having them breed at some point.

I'm a hobbyist and a breeder (apistos) by necessity. I don't have the room to keep hundreds of apistos. I keep my fish in the water parameters they love and when fish are happy they have babies! I have home bred fish from, celestial pearl danio's, kubotai, habrosus cory's, cherry barbs,
trigonostigma somphongsi and my 4 species of apistos.
 

TCMontium

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
179
Location
Germany, Kassel
It was a rhetorical question. But them are apistos and I don't think people can keep a pair (male and female) of apistos in the water parameters they like without having them breed at some point.

I'm a hobbyist and a breeder (apistos) by necessity. I don't have the room to keep hundreds of apistos. I keep my fish in the water parameters they love and when fish are happy they have babies! I have home bred fish from, celestial pearl danio's, kubotai, habrosus cory's, cherry barbs,
trigonostigma somphongsi and my 4 species of apistos.

Well, then (I guess a rhetorical question does not need an answer, but I will answer anyway :oops:) the answer is: They "let the nature decide" and the fry gets eaten by other fish in the aquarium. Or just starve to death because giving live food to fry is "unnatural" and they need to eat organisms that are already living in the aquarium (or dry food). :rolleyes:
Also many people do not keep them in suitable parameters to begin with, so not all of them breed. Some hardy species do breed successfully in a variety of parameters, some do lay eggs but hatching success is not high (rare in apistos, mostly happens to rams) and many lay eggs but they just do not hatch because of the high conductivity and other problems with the water.
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
343
I would add a tetra to eat the apistogramma fry. Most tetras are great fry predators. And if you keep a reasonable sized group, they will decrease the school of fry over the course of a few weeks.

I would not keep fish if I had to raise every fry my fish produced! I don't think anybody would!
 

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