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  1. Bart Hazes

    Dust off the book shelf!

    One of the exciting things about apistos (and quite a few other less-common fish) is that so many things are yet to be discovered and you can be a true citizen scientist if you have the patience to observe, read, experiment and share your stories.
  2. Bart Hazes

    Dust off the book shelf!

    Römer's Cichlid Atlas 1 & 2 is almost permanently on my kitchen table for fish ID and especially habitat and aquarium maintenance info. For websites, http://apisto.sites.no/ is a treasure trove of apisto information and images.
  3. Bart Hazes

    33 gallon long - Dicrossus filamentosus and friends

    My first filamentosus spawn was also eaten the first night after laying the eggs. A second female guarded them for 48 hours before starting to gobble them up. I saw it happening and cut off the leaf with eggs to incubate in a breeding box. Many developed fungus but a few hatches with the...
  4. Bart Hazes

    Strictly South American plants?

    Is anybody using Eichhornia crassipes as a floater. I bought one that multiplied to 5 over the past winter and I'm getting more new rosettes right now. They won't do well in tanks with a hood, glass covers, or with lights close to the tank but I'm now moving all LED lights in my tank racks about...
  5. Bart Hazes

    Strictly South American plants?

    Ammonia uptake by plants does not require oxygen and plants, if submerged, are net oxygen producers. Ammonia conversion to nitrate in the filter takes up oxygen by the nitrifying bacteria. What I don't know if the oxygen drain by the filter is a small fraction of the total oxygen cycle in tanks...
  6. Bart Hazes

    Strictly South American plants?

    Not in a 100% coverage tank but I have otocinclus in a 80-90% coverage 90 gallon tank but that one has a circulation pump. This is also my only tall tank (60cm tall), all others are 25 to 40cm tall and thus have large surface to volume ratio. They also don't have bacterial filters that are a...
  7. Bart Hazes

    Strictly South American plants?

    That has not been my experience. Many of my tanks have 100% cover of floating plants, and no circulation pump either, without signs of oxygen limitation and with breeding apistos. I do like to have some open spots for feeding or areas where more light penetrates to the lower substrate, but I...
  8. Bart Hazes

    Hatchets or Pencils?

    If N. beckfordi is not fry safe then that probably also applies to N. harrisoni, though beckfordi is the fastest pencilfish I have. However, if you have good parents then they will protect their fry from many fish, even 10-15cm predators like geophagus or Hemiodus tetra, although you may lose...
  9. Bart Hazes

    Hatchets or Pencils?

    Feed most fish routinely in one corner and as all the fast feeders move to that spot to feed give a smaller amount in the other corner for the N. eques. Mine like frozen brine shrimp, Hikari micropellets (all pencilfish and tetras love them), and live baby brine shrimp.
  10. Bart Hazes

    Hatchets or Pencils?

    I have a school of N. eques and they are my most timid pencilfish out of 7 species. They also show a much more schooling behaviour than the others. They are in a tank with apistos and corydoras and that works well but I need to feed the N. eques with a turkey baster to make sure they get their...
  11. Bart Hazes

    Best fish for dither use while breeding

    N. marginatus and a few others tend to be cheap. N. mortenthaleri, N. rubrocaudatus, N. espei tend to be expensive. I have 7 or so different pencilfish and like them a lot as dithers. I also recently added one tank with Axelrodia riesei, a max 2 cm tetra, that so far seems to work well as...
  12. Bart Hazes

    GBR Sexing

    My response was based on purple belly below the black flank spot, instead of yellow, and plumper shape than typical males. For apistos I've only seen lip-locking between males or between females but not so far between a male and female. If that is always the case and also applies to rams than...
  13. Bart Hazes

    GBR Sexing

    Two females I'm afraid.
  14. Bart Hazes

    Brine shrimp cultures

    I start three small cultures, in cocktail glasses, each day for morning, noon, and evening feeding. I can normally reuse the water for a second and sometimes a third batch. I don't know how to count hatched vs non-hatched eggs but have been very happy with yields. Most invertebrates are...
  15. Bart Hazes

    Brine shrimp cultures

    Not me. Why would you?
  16. Bart Hazes

    A. Cacatuoides biotope with a higher pH

    Harder water habitats likely have white water, or are influenced by white water. Some of the clear water habitats, such as morichales in Venezuela, can be just as acidic and soft as black water.
  17. Bart Hazes

    Spawning A. norberti & fry

    When they do this to search for small edible particles a bit coarser sand may actually make it easier to separate the food from the sand in a process that isn't quite understood yet but probably relies on the higher density of sand compared to organic material. The sand in this picture is play...
  18. Bart Hazes

    Spawning A. norberti & fry

    Thanks Shane. Two more female norberti have been added. One has started to clean out a coconut cave and is trying to impress the male, but again with little initial interest on his part. Here is a picture of her spitting out a mouth full of sand that she excavated from inside the cave on the...
  19. Bart Hazes

    Apistogramma norberti

    Getting back to the "loss of red lip colour in captivity" remark. How long does it normally take for the red colour to fade. I now have mine for 6 weeks but the lips are still nice red. They are in a tank without filter or circulation pump. Just tons of (floating) plants. One pair spawned a...
  20. Bart Hazes

    PH crash (symptoms and how to avoid)

    A low pH is not a pH crash. Using a peat substrate and peat treated water are aimed at achieving a low but stable pH, presumably to keep fish that are adapted to such an environment. A pH crash is when the pH suddenly and unintentionally drops due to the release of acid in poorly buffered tank...
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