New to Apistogrammers and need advice!

[chrislisk]

So I’ve kept African milawi cichlids for a few years now and I had a spare 100 litre tank sat around and I wanted to do something different. I decided to go to the other side of the cichlids world and try apistogrammers.

The tank is H48, W76, D37cm. I’ve put some silver sand in it with a lot of wood (new to me with milawis lol) I have a mix of real and fake plants and some floating plants for coverage.

originally it was a grow out tank for a baby royal plec I have which is only 2 inches but now it’s my little SA apistogrammer tank. Currently the tank is home to the baby royal plec, 6 baby BNs (all going) and 1 male and 2 female cockatoo cichlids. Eventually it will be just the apistos and the baby royal that will be living together.

My question is would it be possibly to put another little group of apistos in here or am I limited to just the 1 group? Also if I got rid of the girls could I possibly get two males?

mice read that sometimes if you get different species of apistos it’s ok, but given my tank space I was wondering if it’s possible.

Id appreciate any help and advice as I’d really love to have two types of apistos in the tank.

Here’s a photo of it so far.

thanks

 

[anewbie]

Depending on species; I'm not sure you have sufficient hiding places for a single group. Your aquarium is equivalent to a 29 and in my 29 I have a pair of hongsloi. When the female is not breeding she has to stay as far away as possible from the male to avoid aggression and my aquarium has significantly more hiding places. You have cockatoo in your aquarium which are perhaps a little more passive though it depend on individual fishes. Even with more hiding places I doubt it would work well. I've tried mixing a few apisto in my 29 and usually i have to (very quickly) remove 1 and as i noted my aquarium has significantly denser planting and more hiding places.

 

[chrislisk]

Ok I hear you so it’s a no to more species and it’s a…….add more plants and hiding places for the little group I do have. What’s your advice then? Add more females to spread the aggression out like I do with the Africans and leave it as one male and say 4/5 females?

 

[anewbie]

Not enough room for more than 1 more female; remember the aggression gets reversed if the female has frys. Also it is not the same kind of aggression as africans; this is 'get out of my territory' aggression; not I'm boss aggression.

 

[chrislisk]

So should I leave it as one male two females as it is and just add more decor plants etc? Or remove one female and leave a pair? And here was me thinking it would be simpler than my Africans lol.

 

[MacZ]

So should I leave it as one male two females as it is and just add more decor plants etc? Or remove one female and leave a pair? And here was me thinking it would be simpler than my Africans lol.

As a former keeper and breeder of rift lake cichlids: It's a whole different mess.

I know people that do the overcrowding method with Apistogramma but this only works in far bigger tanks and I still do not fully buy into that working out 100%. But in general the overcrowding method is being reformed and overhauled while we speak. People are working on more species appropriate variants with good results.

But as for Apistogramma: The footprint is much more important. While you can e.g. keep a group of 3-5 males (that's part of the updated crowding method) and 10 females of smaller Mbuna or 10 male peacocks easily in a 150x60x60cm tank with proper rockworks, the same tank size with Apistos means at best 3 males and a handful of females. Yes, with fish half to only 1/3 the size of the Malawis.

Apistogramma are somewhat bound to the slab. Males and females have territories and structuring a tank correctly means putting most focus on the 10-15cm above the substrate. The fish rarely swim above 20-25cm of the water column in bigger setups. That's how one can tell that an Apisto near the surface lost in the pecking order and stayed without a territory of their own. For male territories count 60cm diameter, 30cm for females. Can vary with species.

Aggression also can go into outright killings faster. Malawis tend to "just" chase a low ranking fish until it succumbs to stress and disease. With Apistos you might turn on the lights and find a dead or almost dead fish floating. That only happened to me with Haps once or twice in a decade, but with my first pair of Apistogramma (A. ortegai), within the first 2 weeks (admittedly, my tank was not yet structured correctly at that time, as I thought structures would work as with rift lakers.)

 

[chrislisk]

Wow brutal!!! And I thought Africans were bad. So based on this I should keep my one male and 2 females and no more?

 

[MacZ]

Wow brutal!!! And I thought Africans were bad. So based on this I should keep my one male and 2 females and no more?

Unless you want to breed (and I won't hush about the fact that there are too many overbred domestic Apistos, especially A. cacatuoides, already), I'd just keep a single male in that tank size with some tetras or pencils.

Also about the plecos: There can be some problems with nocturnal catfish disturbing diurnal Apistos. Not an optimal combination.

 

[anewbie]

So should I leave it as one male two females as it is and just add more decor plants etc? Or remove one female and leave a pair? And here was me thinking it would be simpler than my Africans lol.

2 females in a 29 is probably ok but i would add more structure so they can stake out their own spots and keep an eye on them. If things get violent then remove one of the females - don't wait for things to 'work out'.

 

[yukondog]

I should keep my one male and 2 females and no more?

The only time I have had any luck with one male and more than one female is with Borellii, I have m/fff in a 40 gl. long with a school of black neon's to help with fry control.

 

[chrislisk]

Get the feeling I should have just got a pair

 

[anewbie]

I had 2 f and a male hongsloi in a 29 and they did fine for over a year; one of the female developed bloat and died so now i have 1 female. Just make sure there are places where they can hide when not breeding; coconut shell and similar are great for when they are breeding but not that great as hiding locations. I have a combination of driftwood and dense plants where they can hide - this is the 29 - i currently have 1 female nijennsi (she was in there before i got the hongsloi - and as long as they leave her along things are ok); 1 female hongsloi and 1 male hongsloi - they have been in this aquarium for about 18 months (the female nijensi over 2 years); it is not a pretty aquarium and it is hard to see all the drift wood at the bottom (there are 4 pieces); the coconut shell in there has an l333 - the female hongsloi mostly breeds right center at the very back in the dense foilage at the bottom; the female nijennsi stays on the left most of the time; the female hongsoli will hang out on the back left when not breeding the male stays near the breeding area on the right 'cept when eating.

 

[chrislisk]

Nice tank! So does the nijensi female breed with the honsloi male? I’ve been offered an Agassiz female would it better to swap one of my females out for this?

 

[MacZ]

So does the nijensi female breed with the honsloi male?

Unlikely. The less the fish resemble each other the less likely are hybrids. Hybridisation should be prevented.

 

[chrislisk]

So would that suggest females from different species would leave each other alone? As they won’t be breeding or am I barking up the wrong tree

 

[MacZ]

The likelyhood of ignoring each other is high, but then again, close quarters are one of the main reasons for hybridisation. With dwarf cichlids it's not the same as with mixing different species of Malawis. It is easier to keep them together the less alike they look and the further they ae distanced from each other genetically. But that's not a guarantee for it going all well.

I'd just leave it be, maybe rehome one of the females and stick to the pair.

 

[anewbie]

Nice tank! So does the nijensi female breed with the honsloi male? I’ve been offered an Agassiz female would it better to swap one of my females out for this?

She despises the hongsloi and they have to stay at least 6 inches from her. I would move her somewhere else but don't have a place and she has done fine the past 2 years. The male developed bloat and i decided my water must not be suitable for them so decided to not buy anymore until I can provide them better water (next year). By then she will be three so i might need to start over from scratch. She has a lot of personality and is actually quite friendly as long as you're not a fish.

 

[anewbie]

Nice tank! So does the nijensi female breed with the honsloi male? I’ve been offered an Agassiz female would it better to swap one of my females out for this?

I would not; i did not deliberately decided to keep them together it just happened over time as my stocking changed.

 

[chrislisk]

So I’ve added more ground cover for these guys. More Java ferns etc. Would u say this is about right now for the trio? Thanks

 

[chrislisk]

I’m also really stuck with tank mates for them. I want something in there so it does not look so empty but really can’t bring myself to add tetras or pencil fish etc….I’m really not a fan to the point I would not add them and leave it.

are there any other fish that have more about them that would work with these guys? I even considered a betta but online forums suggested bad idea. I’m just not a fan of either fish.

I saw marbled hatchets but not sure I can get any. Dont like the whole little fish thing.

I do with I could do another apisto but know I can’t.
Can anyone help with tank mates that aren’t just dither fish or tetras etc