A. Bitaeniata

[aspen]

i just purchased a pair of A. Bitaeniata and would like any care tips about these. they are quite young, and was wondering if i should pick up another female, to make a trio, or will they do ok in a pair. they are presently in quarentine, and i will put them in a newly planted 20 gal with a pair of aggassizzi's and some tetras. what do you think of this idea? plants will be grown as thickly as possible. hygrophylia polysperma, and corkscrew vals.

rick

 

[Discus Man]

Awesome, thanks for the tip Aspen, I'm going to drive there today!

Just to let you know they arevery closely related to agazizi and app. there is a poss. of crossbreeding between the two.
Also, their behaviour is very similar but IME male Bit. get much larger and could pose a problem for you male agazizzi.
I have given up on the idea of mixing male apistos in any size tank. It doesn't seem to work well. Females seem fine but Males seem to defend to the death when mixed. My new motto- one male per tank.
The Bits do well as a trio, besides if you buy a female then change your mind I'll buy her off you.

 

[Discus Man]

Are you sure?

Aspen, I hope I am wrong but are you sure you got a female? I went there and the tank of Bit. is all 100% male. I looked for about 15 minutes for even a debatable. Females look almost identical to Agazizzi females. Just one or two minor differences. In the tank beside were some wild caught not named apisto and in there was a female that I think is a bit.
I bought it just in case.
Let me know... its very possible that all the females were just snatched up.

 

[aspen]

>>'but are you sure you got a female?'

nope. i asked for a male and female. they are both quite young, and if full grown is bigger than my aggies, then they have some growing to do. one is bigger than the other, but sexual differences don't seem that strong. i think i will have to wait a bit, till i can be sure. ie, the 'male' is showing a little bit of blue colour on the sides, and seems to have more 'male' finnage than the 'female'. however they are both quite dull in colour. is there any single characteristic that proves a male or female, any more than the 'average apisto', like eye stripe f/i? time will definately tell, but they have both claimed the little 'apisto home' i put in there. (it is actually a plastic painted reptile cave. he he) the big one is 1 1/2", and the small one is just over an inch. i am usually happy to buy young fish esp when the lifespan is so short for apistos.

sorry that you missed out. i was checking for old posts about the Bitaeniata and remembered you were looking. i'll see if i see any anywhere else and keep you posted. if i see any females, i'll just buy you 2. if later you don't want them, i will keep them. they seem pretty nice up to this point. or, maybe mine will breed.

rick

 

[Discus Man]

Thanks Aspen,

the only way to tell em small is that the females have black edges to their ventral fins like borelli and cacatoides. (I get fins mixed up in my head, its their front pair coming down from the gill area) :roll:
Anyway, if you find females buy extra. Both times I have found them up here the tank was all males. Either that or the immature females look way diff. than all the pictures I've ever seen.
Anyone else got two cents on this?

 

[aspen]

so far i have purchased 2 'pairs' from big al's, and one 'trio' from aqurium depot. the first 2 pairs were quite hard to tell the difference when i got them, but, right now i have 3 pretty sure females, 3 sure males and one that i can't determine yet. they're all in the same tank (30 gal) and showing lots of pairing behaviour. i will separate the best pair or maybe a trio into a 10 gal in a week or 2 after i've got them fattened up a bit. the females are all showing yellow. i guess it just goes to show, there is sometimes no telling at a young age, huh?

hopefully i can separate the females from one batch and a male from the other. d gets his from germany, and i believe big al's gets theirs from the czech republic. so, i should be able to breed without breeding sister to brother.

rick

 

[Alfa_Hold]

Hi,

my pairs of bitaeiata spawned. since 48 hour.
....??
What to do?

Thanks

 

[Neil]

Alfa_Hold,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Congratulations! About 8 days after they spawn you will want to try to start getting food to them. They should be close to free swimming by then. Baby brine shrimp is probably the best bet, but a egg-layer powdered first food should be OK too. You can find alot of info on this through a search here.

Bitaeniata is actually not quite as large, in most cases, as agassizii. They are both closely related, but will probably not cross-breed. However, because they are similar, they are likely to not be too kind to each other. I have found that another characteristic of sexing young bitaeniata (difficult at best) is the patterning on the anal and caudal fin. If you have several to compare, you can sometimes distinguish the spotting, which is (somewhat) absent on the females. I have seen to many young female bitaeniata that lack the black front edge on the ventral to use that with certainty. But, then again, I have also seen numerous examples of females that had as much spotting on the other fins as males too. Try to look at the whole picture and make a "best guess".

Neil

 

[Alfa_Hold]

Thank you Neil, but the eggs seems to be eaten by "somebody"...

 

[Apistt_ed]

many times... as young parents they will eat their own clutch if the conditions of the tank aren't up to par... and or maybe it's just that they are young... if not... you should take them out and maybe place them into a breeding tank all by themselves... kulii loaches, plecos, anything that's bigger/more aggressive than the parents are can usually bully them away and take the eggs that way...
in some instances.. they may have moved them into a more suitable place.. (hopefully this is what happened in your case as did in mine).. well, good luck to ya... they are great little fishes.

Thank you Neil, but the eggs seems to be eaten by "somebody"...