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Hope you don't mind if I piggy-back onto this, Jeff. I also have a lone A. bitaeniata shushupe male from (I believe) the same shipment. I had a line on more a while back, but the contact isn't returning my emails... Never seen these available other than imports, so I'm not optimistic, but if...
I have one specimen sitting in the tank all lonesome...not sure if it's a male or female as of yet...still to young. It's basically the sole survivor of a horrible wild import experience.
Does anyone know of (or have) a source of these? I used to see them all the time, and now not so much...
Anything's possible - but the shushupe I got showed no typical signs of ammonia burn at all. The Inka did have some irritated spots on the flesh.
But there's the whole other factor that the other fsh in my tank were fine until the Apistos moved in.
Yep, same shipment.
I can't understand it. The shushupe appeared really healthy. All were eating and going about their normal territory establishments...and then one at a time, kaput. If the neons hadn't also started dropping, I would not have suspected "extraneous" circumstances. I'm just...
I purchased 6 Inkas and 7 shushupe from the same shipment (I assume).
After 5 days, I have one of each fish left. Worst experience in my 20 years of keeping fish.
The Inkas were pretty much gone within 48 hours. The shushupe looked fine, really healthy in fact. Then one by one, they would...
Congrats!
I've been working on mine for 6 months with still no babies.
I've got the pH below 6, tried temps from 76-82, fed all kinds of live foods, changed water often, changed water rarely, used ultra-low (10ppm) TDS water, treated with peat, almond leaves - nothing.
I know I've had...
IIRC, most bags of peat will give you the approximate pH if you read the back of the bag. I have seen ranges from 4 to "below 6". All brands are not the same and any time I buy a new bag I like to test it out on a more "dispensible" tank before putting it into heavy use.
I agree with Ted - breeding stock in a multi-species system has too much potential to wipe out all the source fish. It's not worth the risk. It's also not worth having to subject healthy fish to treatments affecting the other fish, etc.
Also consider that you're going to need significantly...
Although I didn't diligently keep at it, I've tried 2 sizes of GPs (both smaller than BBS-size) with no apparent feeding response from Apisto fry. With the ease of microworm culturing and BBS hatching, I didn't have the desire to keep trying.
With all this energy spent speculating, why don't we try to come up with a way to test the hypothesis? :) Is it even possible?
My argument is that environmental conditions will dictate the behavior of the fish over anything learned. If the environment doesn't approximate the natural...
I think we're trying to identify that bridge between instinct and memory-based learning - or at least make it more cut and dry, when I don't think we can. It may be a part of each, though I think "fish memories" or cognitive learning is likely quite rudimentary at best when it comes to something...
I'm curious as to why captive raised livestock would be prone to losing the brood-care instinct? For example, I have some A. trifasciata that are reportedly "about F-350" and the brood care instinct is alive and well. I seriously question even an F-1's ability to "know" they aren't in the wild...
I use plain old brown silica play sand. For $3.50 per 50 lb bag and no issues with its use, you can't beat it. Whatever you use, I suggest something the fish can masticate easily - take a mouthful of and sift. Many types do this regularly enough that I'd be afraid of having that "not too small...
A little update:
Monday night, the male spawned with 2 of the 3 females.
The females are occupying caves that are literally about 5 inches away from each other. They are facing opposite directions, though. One female picked the inside of a pile of slate and the other plowed up a big mound in...
I got a quartet of them from Dave about a month ago - 1 guy 3 gals. The ladies have formed a pecking order, but IMO there is plenty of space for them all in this tank (20 long). It is pretty "structured" with rocks, leaves, wood and plants, though.
The dominant gal has gone bright yellow in...