A macmasteri backwater or whitewater?

[Happyfins]

Just after a quick answer here. I know I could work this out by searching the web for ages but haven't got the time. I'm leaning toward whitewater. Am I right?

 

[Bart Hazes]

It is neither. A. macmasteri comes from small clear water creeks that are acidic and very soft but have little or not tannin.

 

[Tom C]

In Mike Wise's translation of the "Ingo Koslowski, Cichlids of the Americas - Volume 2: Apistogramma & Co", we can read:

"Uwe Werner and his traveling companions collected A. macmasteri at many locations in the Rio Metica, like in a shallow, sandy blackwater river near El Merey having major accumulations of wood and leaf litter"

I collected several A. macmasteri-like fishes in Colombia in January this year
(Colombia trip Jan - Feb 2017 Most of the Apistogramma-macmasteri-group forms we collected)

As you'll see in my report, some of the habitats look like this:

all of these are obviously blackwater.

Others don't have much black color:

Muddy, yes, but pH usually between 5 -6.

 

[Happyfins]

Thank you. That's why I love this site, people have actually been to these places. Seems these problems are hardly ever black or white, excuse the pun. My initial thought was to try backwater extract to induce spawning, quick internet search made me lean more toward whitewater and here we are now with clear blackwater and muddy water. Guess my initial instinct wouldn't have harmed them and since they live in all this different habitats they must be pretty tough which is my experience thus far.

 

[Bart Hazes]

I got my info from Uwe's cichlid atlas 1 which, based on reports by Linke & Staeck, indicates they were caught in a very slow flowing clear water stream. Perhaps they can be found in both clear and black water. I am sure that wouldn't be the first time.

 

[yukondog]

New to the sight but not fish, what is whitewater-blackwater? I've kept and bred cichlids mostly kribs and angels and about to try and get some apistos, but where I live its pretty limited to dbl. reds, I'm sure I'll have plenty of ?'s.

 

[Bart Hazes]

White water has a lot of particulates, often eroded material from young mountains like the Andes. It tends to be harder, less acidic, and with very limited transparency. Clear water is the opposite with good transparency and normally low hardness and low pH. Black water is clear water with a lot of tannins and other compounds originating from decomposing plant material. This makes the water dark, yellowish to tea-colour, and typically with very low hardness, conductivity and pH. Most apistos come from clear or black water, but sometimes there can be mixing with some white water.

 

[yukondog]

Thanks that was very informative, I was pretty sure what blackwater was as living in Fl. we see it all the time.

 

[gerald]

You can also have blackwater with moderate conductivity and near-neutral pH, especially in FL where outflow from limestone springs mixes with tannin-rich swamp waters. Not sure if there are habitats like that in S. Amer, but it's a huge place with diverse geology, so I'd be surprised if there's NOT places like that. Anyway, ALL natural streams and lakes have decaying leaf litter and wood, whether they look black or not, so adding these to an aquarium will not have any adverse effects on your fish, and will most likely be physiologically helpful (especially in low conductivity water). The Sailfin and Bluenose shiners (Pteronotropis species) of southeast USA are a good example of blackwater fishes that are not especially tolerant of very low pH.