75 g Angel/Apistogramma tank - How Many/What Kind? Recommendations?

[janky]

I stumbled on to this forum initially trying to ID my blue cheek apisto. Everyone here was really helpful, and I'm happy to say he's doing great and he's one of my favorites in the tank!

I've began researching apistos more and more and I definitely want more of them in the 75 gallon! I feel like I have room, so my questions are basically about compatibility.

My stock list includes
5 Angels (3 babies, 2 mid-sized adults)

1 blue cheek apisto and 1 "dwarf caucatoo" - although s/he doesn't look much like one to me...

A school of 10 xray tetra (tiny guys)

2 Plecos (1 small and 1 mid-size species, no common)

I'd like more apisto friends in the tank... A lfs has some very healthy electric blue rams I may pick up - but I'm curious as to what other apistos could go in there?

They're all fairly peaceful right? Any breeds not get along? How many more would be my limit?
I like the agasszi and saw something called the apisto "elizabethae" on google - any info on that breed?


What do you guys think?
If you were in my shoes, what would you buy?

 

[slimbolen99]

I think you'd be ok putting apistos with angels as long as you have plenty of cover on the lower 1/3 of the tank.
Personally, I don't like mixing apisto species -- it just adds to many variables...especially if you were to happen to have a spawn (you probably wouldn't know who the father is).
I'd select a single species you are interested in, and then try a trio or m/f/f/f quartet.

It's funny how different species of apistos interact...in one of my 75s, I have four A. schwarzkinn 'black shin' females and one male all spawning and raising fry. In another, I started with that same combo, but this time with A. agassizi, and ended up with only two females and one male remaining. Almost the exact same setup, but lost two agassizi females due to aggression.

I'm not familiar with an xray tetra, but as long as the angels don't eat them when the angels grow up, you could add more if you liked.
Best of luck!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'm not familiar with an xray tetra

I think these are Pristella tetras, they are really nice tetras, but great fry hunters. Black-Neon Tetras are a better bet. You may also find your Plecs will eat the Apisto eggs at night. I've got a sub-adult Hypancistrus L333 in with my A. cacatuoides until I can re-home him, and he is a great egg eater.

apisto "elizabethae"

A. elizabethae is a valid species, but it isn't an easy species to find or keep. I would recommend a read through "ApistoBob's" (Bob Wiltshire's) web site before I purchased any more fish.

<http://www.dwarfcichlid.com/Aquarium_care.php>

cheers Darrel

 

[janky]

I think you'd be ok putting apistos with angels as long as you have plenty of cover on the lower 1/3 of the tank.
Personally, I don't like mixing apisto species -- it just adds to many variables...especially if you were to happen to have a spawn (you probably wouldn't know who the father is).
I'd select a single species you are interested in, and then try a trio or m/f/f/f quartet.

It's funny how different species of apistos interact...in one of my 75s, I have four A. schwarzkinn 'black shin' females and one male all spawning and raising fry. In another, I started with that same combo, but this time with A. agassizi, and ended up with only two females and one male remaining. Almost the exact same setup, but lost two agassizi females due to aggression.

I'm not familiar with an xray tetra, but as long as the angels don't eat them when the angels grow up, you could add more if you liked.
Best of luck!

Yeah. I could see that... it would make sense to just stick to one type (especially if breeding). As it is the eunotus I have always chases off the little "cockatoo" when its feeding time and he gets too close. He doesn't nip at it, just chases... but I understand cause the angels are super aggressive about feeding, so them and the cockatoo will just swim right up to the top when I'm near the tank. The eunotus never goes to the top, he waits for chunks of food to fall to him.

Hi all,
I think these are Pristella tetras, they are really nice tetras, but great fry hunters. Black-Neon Tetras are a better bet. You may also find your Plecs will eat the Apisto eggs at night. I've got a sub-adult Hypancistrus L333 in with my A. cacatuoides until I can re-home him, and he is a great egg eater.
A. elizabethae is a valid species, but it isn't an easy species to find or keep. I would recommend a read through "ApistoBob's" (Bob Wiltshire's) web site before I purchased any more fish.

<http://www.dwarfcichlid.com/Aquarium_care.php>

cheers Darrel

Thank you for the link! Reading it now, and it is very informative!
The tetras were my first fish (I'm new to the hobby) and I got them at Petsmart (lol) under the name "X-ray Tetra". They do seem similar to pristellas, but smaller.

I never really thought about breeding the fish, but I would not be opposed to it if that did happen!
Would I need some kind of cave or something for them?
And yeah, I agree - the fry probably wouldn't have much of a survival rate with the plecos/tetras.. I could try to get one of those breeder boxes that hang on the tank though, if I considered trying to breed them

 

[Mike Wise]

IMHO breeder boxes kill more apisto fry than they save.

 

[janky]

Ok, so I'd probably be better off with a flat piece of slate rock and some dense planting around it?
I picked up some GBR/EBR so it'd be awesome if I could get them to breed

 

[slimbolen99]

The plecos will suck the fry right through the fine mesh net breeder boxes, especially at night when the fry are resting. Haven't tried the plastic kind before, but have seen it happen with my own two eyes with the fine mesh type.

 

[Mike Wise]

No chance of the fry surviving in a community tank. You need to decide: do you want a community tank or a breeding tank? You can't have it both ways.

 

[janky]

Fair enough.
I'm happy with my community... as long as they're happy and healthy, we're all golden!

Out of curiousity, is it possible to note a "pairing" behavior or any kind of pre-breeding rituals and then isolate the pair?? I do have a spare tank or two that could be set up for breeding - but I don't know if that's feasible. They may stress from being moved around or something?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Out of curiousity, is it possible to note a "pairing" behavior or any kind of pre-breeding rituals and then isolate the pair?? I do have a spare tank or two that could be set up for breeding - but I don't know if that's feasible.

Yes you can. You need to keep a spare sponge filter in the main tank, and make sure you have some floating plants, and ideally some moss etc planted on 1/2 coconuts, java fern on bog-wood etc., spare silica sand and some oak or Indian almond etc leaves. You also need to give the female a choice of caves, I use 1/2 coconuts, but small plec caves etc will do.

As soon as the male starts displaying to the female, and she sticks around rather than swimming straight off, set up the breeding tank, and then move the pair over, you then need to feed heavily with live food, if you have BBS you can use these, but I don't always have BBS (I don't really keep enough tanks to be worth it), so I feed grindal worms, small red worms (Lumbricus rubellus), mosquito larvae and Daphnia. If the female hasn't spawned within a few days, I'd move the male back into the main tank, but keep her in the breeding tank and keep feeding her lots of live food, and have another go about a week later.
If you still have no joy take the male out, put her back in the main tank, and then a day or so later put him back in.

You need a reasonable large floor area on the breeding tank, I wouldn't go smaller than 18" long, and depending upon species you may need to move the male after spawning. If you have BBS you can feed these to the fry as soon as they are free-swimming, I'd leave her and the fry together, if you don't have BBS, I'd feed micro-worms together with powdered flake, and if you have a lot of java moss (and dead leaves) it aids fry development. As soon as the fry are a little bit bigger I feed grindal worms in with the microworms and flake. Feeding dry and live food together works because the fry feeding response is stimulated by the movement of the worms, and this tends to encourage them to have a go at the flake particles. You can also feed decapsulated BBS with the worms and for the smaller fry squeezing out the sponge provides rotifers etc. You may find the larger fry spend quite a lot of time picking at items on the sponge. Once the fry are free-swimming and she has abandoned them, you can put her back in the tank, although you may need to keep her and the male apart (depends on species, A. cacatuoides is very calm, and you don't tend to get much male/female aggression, but other species are much more prickly).

I keep up water changes in the fry tank, for little tanks I change 25% a day, you can use some water out of the main tank, if you are worried about the volume of the water change. You will need a much bigger tank to grow the fry out in, until they are sexable/saleable.


cheers Darrel

 

[janky]

I'm pretty sure my EBR's laid eggs.
They are guarding a rock in the corner and sitting over the little brownish circles all over it.

What do I do? They're still in the community tank. Everyone leaves them alone, but I'm worried for the fry...
Should I move the pair and the rock w eggs into a different tank? I don't really have a qt or anything set up at this point.

 

[Mike Wise]

If you want to try and save the spawn, you could remove the rock to a hatching tank and treat them like angelfish. Otherwise, let the parents try to take care of them (not very optimistic, however). Again, a community tank is not a (good) breeding tank. You have to decide what you want.