A couple apisto questions

[Pooky125]

Went to the Minnesota Aquarium Society auction in early may, and picked up 6 Apistogramma Winkelfleck. It's been over a month, there as aggressive as always, and growing, so, heres my question, does anyone know anything about this fish? My guess is there like most other apistos, in which case, shouldn't be to much of a problem. They seem to be doing pretty well so far, no casualties, although its evident whos the leader of the pack!

Secondly, I've had a pair of agassizii for prolly around 6 weeks now. Even after that amount of time, there still VERY shy. I have to lie perfectly still in front of there tank for several minutes before they come out from hiding. It's not a terribly big tank either, so it's rather frustrating. It's a lil 10 gallon, fairly heavily planted, with caves and driftwood and the like. Should be about perfect for them, but there consistantly shy. They live alone in hopes that someday they will breed for me, and won't have to work to hard fending off any other fish in the tank. Anyone know why, after so much time, they could still be so shy. The tank is in my bedroom, which doesn't get a whole lot of traffic, a pretty quiet space, and there unbareably shy. One of my favorite fish, but I never see them. Anyone know how to bring them out of there caves, and get them to show themselves? Certainly not a problem with any of my other dwarves!

 

[HardAlkguy]

Shy Fish

I would recommend that you get some dither fish for your 10 gal tank with the shy agassizii. A school of 6 glowlight tetras, cardinal tetras, harlequin rasboras, or some similar schooling fish. That definitely wouldn't stress the biological balance of the tank and having those little guys wandering around oblivous to the world sure makes the dwarf cichlids more confident no one is lurking nearby to eat them. :lol:

Kevin

 

[Neil]

Pooky125,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

I'ld say that Kevin hit the nail on the head. Your best bet is dither fish. Don't worry so much about the risk to the fry. With about 6 pencilfish (for example) in there, the pair can defend easily against them. Pencils don't seem too interested in fry anyway IME.

Winkelfleck is (AKA A. sp. "Masken", A. sp. "Tiger-stripe" and A. sp."Cara Pintada") I think that they are even calling them (or a slight variant) A. sp. "Apache". It is unclear whether all of these species are the same or closely related, but their requirements are fairly easy to achieve. They should do fine in water with neutral values, but will feel better and be more productive in 6pH and low hardness. Temp.=78 degrees.
Neil

 

[Pooky125]

Ahh, gracias amigos! Too your advice and went out and got some dither fish today. 6 nice fat and juicy black neons. Within minutes of being let out the apistos were out to play around. Seemed to have a bit of a problem at first, the neons are bigger then the apistos are, and the female is a li scared of them, but they shoudl catch on quick enough. As for the winkelfleck, thx much, been having a hard time finding anything about that variety of apisto. Totally knew to me, but they were really really cheap, and very pretty, so I couldn't resisit. Had a couple spair tanks lying around anyway.

 

[apistodave]

I beleive Winkelfleck basically translates out to Angle_Spot in German. Uwe and I first found this fish at Glasers in Frankfurt and the markings on the side resembled a German one so I called it Mark Spot and Uwe changed it to angle spot. it is a really nice fish and not too hard to breed. Ken Davis brought some in under the name that Neil mentioned-Apache.Dithers will help the aggies but I have found Tetras to be aggressive sometimes and Neils suggestion about the pencils is a good one