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A. Borellii breeding and faff - a few questions

Caol Ila

New Member
Messages
2
Last autumn, I got three A. borellii juveniles, hoping for a trio. They went into a Fluval Roma 125L tank. As the fish matured, it looked as though they were all female, and I lost psych for breeding and made it into a community tank, which included some corys and two Hypancistrus plecos. So not really suitable for breeding the apistos. Recently, I got interested in breeding again and set up a 15g tank as a breeding tank. I caught two of the three females and put them in the tank. They were not impressed and went into hiding. The next day, I picked up a small shoal of five nannostomus marginatus as dithers. One of the apistos has reappeared, three days later, and she's acting fairly normal. Her pal remains in hiding as of this writing. Meanwhile, the third female, who stayed in the community tank, has been frantically glass surfing ever since her two pals moved. I feel bad. I have shifted fish around my tanks many times, and no one has acted quite this traumatised.

I still don't have a male. LFS is trying to source one.

Hopefully my hiding female will recover and reappear.

I'm assuming that 15g is too small for three females + a male? That means the one female has to stay in the community tank. Do they settle as lone of fish of their species, or should I try to aquire a friend? Another borellii? A female apisto of a different species (borellii seem in short supply around here at the moment)?
 
Last edited:

yukondog

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
664
Location
N.W. Fl.
Welcome Caol Ila, I too have three females and no male, the lone female should be fine once she settles in, dont know why this is in bold print.
 
Messages
36
Location
AZ
Id move the one that's in hiding in the 15 gal back to the one that is glass surfing.

I must warn you though. A. borealli is a VERY slow growing species. It'll take about 6 months to get them to a sellable size.
 

Caol Ila

New Member
Messages
2
The two in the 15g have reappeared and the one in the community tank seems to have settled. Nothing will happen yet as I'm still looking for a male.

Do most people remove the fry from the parents at some point?
 

Andreas

Member
Messages
99
The two in the 15g have reappeared and the one in the community tank seems to have settled. Nothing will happen yet as I'm still looking for a male.

Do most people remove the fry from the parents at some point?
I was under the impression that you should leave them because the parents care of them for like 2 weeks and then you remove them
 

Andreas

Member
Messages
99
My practice is to keep the fry with the mother until she starts to push them out of her breeding territory. I've had offspring become sexually mature in a breeding tank (not recommended).
so it is POSSIBLE to keep the fry until sexual maturity in breeding tank.But only with borellis?
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,202
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
I've never been successful doing this with A. borellii or most other polygamous apisto species. I have had this happen once in a while with A. nijsseni, A. panduro, and A. wolli but even these drive out the fry once they get the urge to breed again. That's why I said to remove fry once the female starts to drive them away. There is no way to successfully raise quantities of fry without a grow-out tank.
 

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