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Your mention of Silver tips being nippy made me smile. In the 80s I had someone return one out of a school of 12. Why? Because it kept every other fish in a 60"/1.5m tank pressed into one side of the tank. It included same good sized angelfish. I'm sure this is atypical of the species, although...
Most of the driftwood along the coast of the northwest US are from conifer trees, mostly cedar and spruce. Since these are resinous species, I wouldn't add them. I have used cottonwood, oak and elm branches, but only from limbs cut after the leaves fall and then take 2 months of soaking...
Agree with others. We need more information: species (age and properly sexed?), water maintenance, water values, temperature, tank size and layout, lighting, and location (room it is located in, including height above the floor). All these can have a bearing on success or failure.
Look up Römer & Beißenherz's paper on temperature and sex ratios in the search engine here. A. borellii was one of the species in the study. 26°C/79°F resulted in a 50/50 ratio. Realize that they made strict counts of numbers of eggs/numbers of adults. Any batch <90% survival were discarded from...
From equatorial areas, yes, but warmer water? No. On the many times I visited the exporter Stingray Aquarium in Iquitos, Peru I always stopped to visit the pond outside their office. This pond, other than some aquatic turtles, contained swarms (no other word for it) of Otocinclus, which they...
Both of your books were originally published in the early 80s actually. Both are good for understanding general care, etc. Names and numbers of species (now over 500 and growing!) may not be the same. As I have said before, "taxonomists change the names to confuse the aquarist!"o_O
Well, none of the tanks are ideal breeding tanks decor-wise, a bit open and no surface cover. In my experience these cause apistos to be insecure and hide a lot. Could this be the cause? Also, is that a Rose-line shark (Sahyadria denisonii) in one of the photos? Not a good dither, too large and...
Also note that fish are cold-blooded and their metabolism is regulated by the outside temperature for the most part. They require much less nutrition than a warm-blooded animal. About 90% of your food intake is used to keep your body at a uniform temperature.
If you want to be extra safe, just collect water off of the roof ~15 minutes after it starts to rain. This will provide time for the roof to rinse itself of debris and flush any pollutants in the air.
I always hesitate to recommend activated carbon found in pet stores. It is not best quality...
My opinions of the books:
Staeck's Lexicon - good, concise discussions of species available at the time (2003). Nice photos and mostly accurate. Only published in German, but as Mac wrote, Dutch and German are close enough that you should be able to read it. I, for example, can read German well...
I can provide an English translation in MS Word for free to anyone who can prove that they own the book.
I understand, but think of it this way. How much will I spend on the apistos? The books eventually pay for themselves. As I tell people, books are forever.
Don't you have a good dwarf cichlid book? Both of Koslowski's books, Staeck's 2003 book and Römer's CA1 book have good information on this species. That said, it is relatively rarely available commercially, is a blackwater species, and breeds and behaves like A. cacatuoides. My specimens grew...
Maybe I missed reading it somewhere, but what size is the aquarium? Yes, A. bitaeniata will live in your water values and might even successfully reproduce in them. Personally, I would go with A. caetei, but that's just me.