apisto blue steel

[Ig1988]

Hello evreryone, this is my first post and the main reason i joined this site isto ask peoples opinions on this fish?
I bought a trio of apistogramma blue steel. I had never seen these fish before and as i dont usually buy fish without knowing exactly what they are i was close to walking away. However i had travelled 20miles to the shop intent on getting 3 apistos of some kind. The blue steels where the only apistos there so i just got them.

I have done some of my own research into them and it seems that i have purchased a hybrid and paid £17 for the privaledge, which at first i was not to happy about. However after watching them for a few days i hav grown to like them. I would like to ask if anyone has any experiances/stories of keeping, sexing or breeding these fish?
The guy in the shop assured me that i have 2 feamles and 1 male, although most of the info on the net says only males r sold however alot of this is old information.
Anything related to this fish would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dw1305]

Hi Ig1988,
Welcome aboard,
Have a look on Apistobob's web site <http://www.dwarfcichlid.com/> for details about Apisto keeping, he is a member of this forum, and its a great site.

Blue-Steel details here.
<http://www.dwarfcichlid.com/Apistogramma_sp_Steel_blue.php>.

They were my first Apistos, 2 males (bought as a pair of A. borellii) and eventually a female, although I didn't manage to breed them, they were beautiful.

Females are available in the UK now, couple of forum members have bred them and they found them easy to keep and breed.

Thread here
<http://www.forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?p=47134>

cheers Darrel

 

[ste12000]

Hi, i have also had Apistogramma 'Steelblue' in my tanks and had definate females..The shops do seem to stock more males than females but there are usually females to be found if you look carefully! Apistogramma sex ratios are sometimes effected by temperatures when growing up, this is most likely the cause of the all male shipments..Plus if it was a man made hybrid then shipping only one sex allows breeders in Asia to keep hold of their monopoly.

Breeding is easy although spawns are small, i spawned them several times and did not get more than 30 per spawning! As Dw1305 points out, dwarfcichlid.com has plenty of good information and also uses a few of my pics and links to my videos..

They are a nice species of fish and from a observation point of view one i would not mind keeping again! My local shop has some in now and they are cheap so who knows????

 

[Ig1988]

Thanks for the feedback guys. One more question, the 2 females i have seem to have really colloured up all the black in them is very vivid and although they havnt got thier own territorys so to speak, they have started chasing eachother round the tank and become quite aggresive. On the otherhand th male has gone very pale and looks quite stressed as both the females keep chasing it. They are all under 2inches in size so i dont think they are very mature any advice or possible reason for this?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Ig1988 can you get some photos? the behaviour sounds a little like you may have 3 males, but the mention of colour and black sounds more promising, have the females gone yellow with black ventral fins?

"Pale and stressed" maybe because he is being beaten up, have a look at Apistobobs sections on cover, you need lots. It maybe something else, is the male very thin? if he is I would suspect internal parasites (my female "Blue-steel, brought Camallanus nematodes with her).

cheers Darrel

 

[Ig1988]

I think i have found the reason for the pale and stressed thing woke up this morning and one of my clown loach has a white spot and also some of my new cardinals also have it. As far as i can see the Apistos dont, I have treated it so just have to wait and see.
As far as cover goes my tank is well established and planted with a large pile of slate at one end and plenty of drift wood. I will try and get some pictures up ifi can figure out how to do it, so that somebody may be able to confirm whether they are males or female.

 

[Ig1988]

Here are some pictures can you please say whether they are male or female.
This is the 'male'

2 'Females'

 

[dw1305]

Hi,
Thanks for the photos, male is almost certainly a male, the other 2 might be females. The colour is too washed out in the photo to be really sure. The lack of blue markings look promising, but you can't really see any black marking on the ventrals, which would clinch it.

My suspicion is that the third fish is a female, she also appears to have more rounded fins, less sure about fish 2. They all look nice and plump, and the tank looks good, so I'll be interested in what develops.

Steve kept his for longer than me, so it will be interesting to see what he or any other of the dwarf cichlid greats think.

cheers Darrel

 

[Apistomaster]

I finally got to see Apistogramma 'Steel blue" about a month ago at the LFS.
They brought in 6 males. I have heard about or have seen photos of them over the years but these were the first I'd seen in real life.
They appeared to be belligerent amongst themselves in the shop.
Kind of an interesting looking fish. Hard to see how they could be mistaken for A. borelli, the name the shop was using.

 

[Ig1988]

Thanks dw1305 for ur help. Fish 2 and 3 are very similar even if the photos dont show it they do both also have black lines on their ventrals (although hard to see) so they are more than likey female like you said. Yeh my tank is well planted with plenty of cover so I too am looking forward to seeing what happens, ill keep you updated with any progress! I have succesfully kept and bred Cichlids in th past both German Rams and Kribensis but these are my first apistos. Already fell in love with apistos and looking forward to getting more in the future!!

 

[dw1305]

Blue steel aggression

Hi,
Sounds very promising, 2 females and a male then.

Apistomaster wrote,
"They appeared to be belligerent amongst themselves in the shop.
Kind of an interesting looking fish".

When I had the two males, the dominant one beat up the other one to the extent that it virtually never came out from under a piece of bog wood or pot. I keep very weedy, complex tanks so it wasn't a "line of sight" issue. The dominant male spent most of his day investigating all possible caves and hiding places until it found the sub-ordinate male, and if it could get at it straight away, it waited outside, a bit like a cat outside a mouse hole for any chance to inflict some more damage. It totally ignored the dithers.

They were my first Apistos so I wasn't sure if this was normal or not. After about week I'd found that they weren't A. borrellii, and they were both males, so I separated them (with a screen).

The female appeared just as aggressive as the males, although I didn't keep them together for very long. When I introduced the sub-dominant male to her tank they immediately flared at each other, and this quickly escalated so I removed him before any permanent damage was done, same when I tried the dominant male, I left them for a couple of days by which time they both had fairly tattered fins, she was in hiding and the male was relentlessly searching the tank. Before anyone asks the obvious question, she was definitely a female and not a sneaker male, I dissected her and did gen. det. after death.

Shortly after that she began to look thinner and less healthy, before showing signs of camallanus infection that led to me euthanasing all 3 of them. (she was initially in QT for 4 weeks, and I treated them with Flubenol 15, which had no effect, by the time I'd found out and sourced some Levamisole it was too late, although it did successfully treat the tetra dithers with it.)

The colours of the males in the shop doesn't do them justice, they colour up to a fantastic sky blue shimmer with sharp black markings. The female also coloured up much more yellow (during her time with the male) and showed marking changes, which I now know are a prelude to mating. If I get the chance, and a spare tank, I'll definitely try them again.

I believe both Steve and Mark found that they weren't particularly aggressive, spawned fairly easily, weren't too bothered about pH and TDS, so possibly I was just unlucky.

cheers Darrel