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apisto cacatuoudes tank

Kaliska

New Member
Messages
7
zero apisto experience so first your typical tank size question. Would a 10g work as a single species breeding tank or do I need to stick to the 20g long? How many females to male? What about if I put short finned breeding guppies in with them as a partial live food source and dither fish?

What are good water parameters? Due to tapwater toxins I am using RO and I was using seachem's alkaline buffer (bicarbonate based) and equilibrium but I found issues with the lack of calcium and difficulty dissolving equilibrium. I now initially run my water through crushed coral and then finish the buffering and gh with alkaline buffer (ends up with ph 7.8) and cichlid lake salts. Cichlid lake salt is designed for africans but could be mixed at any concentration or I can go back to liquid Replenish which is an overall gh mix for community tanks that is already dissolved or they do make an american cichlid salt powder. Same with buffer there is acid regulator, neutral regulator, arowana buffer.... It just costs more and means I have to run more water change storage tanks to mix different items instead of using less of the same one on that particular batch and mixing in more to finish changes on other tanks.

Any species specific food? Pellets, flakes, frozen? I have bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and beef heart frozen for my bettas and orange spotted sunfish. They also get guppies and ghost shrimp. I was going to grab some cherry shrimp at a swap tomorrow and start breeding those. I have blue ramshorn snails and am getting red ramshorns that the crayfish and sunfish love stripping out of their shells. The damage to the snail shells and molting crayfish is why I switched to a more calcium based hardness additive.

I have a ton of temple plant. I just made 3 more 6-8" cuttings. Some aquatic mint, some anacharis, lots of hornwort, and lots of duckweed. I was going to put a moss wall on a cork background of my 40g breeder for the sunfish so I am debating similar if I'm heavily planting a tank for apisto. What do they need for open areas and substrate?
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
zero apisto experience so first your typical tank size question.
Welcome, Apistogramma are great fish.

Have a look at <"ApistoBob's web site">, it is full of good information. It will take you a while to go through them, but Mike Wise's posts are also an invaluable resource.
Would a 10g work as a single species breeding tank or do I need to stick to the 20g long? How many females to male?
I wouldn't start with a 10 gallon tank, the smaller the tank floor area the more potential problems you are likely to have. Each female needs 12" square of tank space, with some "spare" space for the male. You also need to provide a refuge for <"battered fish"> away from the tank floor.
What about if I put short finned breeding guppies in with them as a partial live food source and dither fish?
They aren't great fry hunters.
What are good water parameters? Due to tapwater toxins I am using RO and I was using seachem's alkaline buffer (bicarbonate based) and equilibrium but I found issues with the lack of calcium and difficulty dissolving equilibrium. I now initially run my water through crushed coral and then finish the buffering and gh with alkaline buffer (ends up with ph 7.8) and cichlid lake salts. Cichlid lake salt is designed for africans but could be mixed at any concentration or I can go back to liquid Replenish which is an overall gh mix for community tanks that is already dissolved or they do make an american cichlid salt powder. Same with buffer there is acid regulator, neutral regulator, arowana buffer.... It just costs more and means I have to run more water change storage tanks to mix different items instead of using less of the same one on that particular batch and mixing in more to finish changes on other tanks.
Yes things are a bit different with Apistogramma. They come from water with very low dGH and dKH values. In very hard water (like the Rift Lakes) you need big changes in water chemistry to change pH, which won't normally drop below pH8 (due to the carbonate ~ CO2 equilibrium) but very soft water it is different and small changes in water chemistry cause big changes in pH.

In their natural environments soft water fish may <"experience diurnal pH swings"> from ~pH5 to pH8 (a change of 1000 times in H+ ion activity) caused by changes in the oxygen/CO2 balance

Because you keep planted tanks (and <"I would really strongly recommend these"> with Apistogramma) then you can just buffer it minimally with <"Seachem Equilibrium"> or similar. You can DIY a mix from the link on "James' Planted Tank".
Any species specific food? Pellets, flakes, frozen? I have bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and beef heart frozen for my bettas and orange spotted sunfish. They also get guppies and ghost shrimp. I was going to grab some cherry shrimp at a swap tomorrow and start breeding those. I have blue ramshorn snails and am getting red ramshorns that the crayfish and sunfish love stripping out of their shells. The damage to the snail shells and molting crayfish is why I switched to a more calcium based hardness additive.
Frozen and live foods, although some fish will go for pellets (I use the pellets with astaxanthin), if you can get your Sunfish to eat pellets you can probably get your Apistogramma. I wouldn't feed <"beef heart">, and there are some reservations about <"frozen blood-worm"> (live are fine), Mysis shrimp are good. I feed <"mine a mix"> of Mosquito/Midge larvae, Earthworms, Grindal worms, Blackworms, Mosquito larvae, Daphnia and <"Crangonyx pseudogracilis">.
I have a ton of temple plant. I just made 3 more 6-8" cuttings. Some aquatic mint, some anacharis, lots of hornwort, and lots of duckweed. I was going to put a moss wall on a cork background of my 40g breeder for the sunfish so I am debating similar if I'm heavily planting a tank for apisto. What do they need for open areas and substrate?
They just need sand as a substrate, but the tank can be heavily planted with lots of dead leaves etc.

I have a floater and moss in all the tanks, the other are all good as well. Depending on how soft you can get the water you may find that Duckweed (Lemna minor), Temple plant (Hygrophila corymbosa), Anacharis (Egeria densa) and Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) all struggle (none of them grow very well in soft low nutrient water).

Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) and Indian Fern (Ceratopteris thalictroides) are good soft water alternatives to Duckweed and Hornwort.

cheers Darrel
 

Kaliska

New Member
Messages
7
The ro/di after running with the crushed coral overnight is about 4dkh and 6dgh before any acids are introduced. I have Indian almond leaf from breeding bettas that would probably bring that to neutral 7.0 ph. I can dip the tds meter in it for more accurate solids. I would prefer not to use equilibrium anymore. Even with 0 tds and everything else I can test from the ro system the equilibrium refuses to evenly dissolve and after awhile forms this brown particulate. All my storage tanks have layers of the stuff cemented on unless I soak them in vinegar and pure ro water.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
The ro/di after running with the crushed coral overnight is about 4dkh and 6dgh before any acids are introduced. I have Indian almond leaf from breeding bettas that would probably bring that to neutral 7.0 ph. I can dip the tds meter in it for more accurate solids.
Basically you'll just need to add a lot less hardness (both dGH, dKH).

I like <"leaf litter">, but once you have added significant carbonate buffering your pH will stay in the pH7.8 - pH8.2 range, due to the CO2 ~ HCO3 equilibrium.

You can't have pH stability in soft water without using pH buffers (like mixes of dihydrogen potassium (KH2PO4)/ dipotassium phosphate (K2HPO4) ) etc.

You can acidify the water with an acid, but if you've added an alkaline salt (CaCO3) to the RO you need to add a lot more acids (H+ ions), which raises the conductivity.

I use a TDS meter (they really measure conductivity) to keep the conductivity TDS in the tanks at about 80 - 120microS (55 ~75ppm TDS). The meter will have a conversion factor for TDS, it is usually 0.62 (100 microS = 62 ppm TDS)

I don't keep any black-water species (I use rain-water, but locally it is all limestone, and dust raises the conductivity).

Is your tap supply really hard? If it is you may be able to just buffer the RO with a small amount of tap. I'm lucky in that I have a very clean, hard tap supply (from a deep limestone aquifer).
I would prefer not to use equilibrium anymore. Even with 0 tds and everything else I can test from the ro system the equilibrium refuses to evenly dissolve and after awhile forms this brown particulate. All my storage tanks have layers of the stuff cemented on unless I soak them in vinegar and pure ro water.
It sounds like insoluble iron phosphates and/or hydrated iron oxides have formed. It is a pH effect and if you have less carbonate hardness this should happen.

cheers Darrel
 

Kaliska

New Member
Messages
7
My tap is not quite as liquid rock as other places I lived around here but it's practically a sewer. 5 ppm ammonia and full of organics that cloud and push the ammonia higher over days. I'm not using to because my water is hard. I got a system because my water is toxic.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Hey Darrel, stalking your post from 2016 haha. I'm just wondering, are there any no-nos in regards to feeding your fish earth worms? Will they be ok to eat all and every earthworm?
Not as far as I know. @Mike Wise says it is best to feed worms, of any description, fairly sparingly because of their high fat and protein content, but they are fantastic foods for <"conditioning fish for spawning">.

I've mainly been feeding California Blackworm (Lumbriculus variegatus) lately, purely because <"I've got a culture method"> that supplies all I need, but they are really just small aquatic "earthworms".
Will they be ok to eat all and every earthworm?
No, I've found that there are definitely some worms they don't like, particularly <"Eisenia foetida">.

Some fish are fine with segments from larger worms, but ideally you want a continual supply of small worms, that can be fed whole.

cheers Darrel
 

Andreas

Member
Messages
99
Hi all, Not as far as I know. @Mike Wise says it is best to feed worms, of any description, fairly sparingly because of their high fat and protein content, but they are fantastic foods for <"conditioning fish for spawning">.

I've mainly been feeding California Blackworm (Lumbriculus variegatus) lately, purely because <"I've got a culture method"> that supplies all I need, but they are really just small aquatic "earthworms".No, I've found that there are definitely some worms they don't like, particularly <"Eisenia foetida">.

Some fish are fine with segments from larger worms, but ideally you want a continual supply of small worms, that can be fed whole.

cheers Darrel
Are there any earhworms that are bad for the fish
 
Messages
14
Hi all, Not as far as I know. @Mike Wise says it is best to feed worms, of any description, fairly sparingly because of their high fat and protein content, but they are fantastic foods for <"conditioning fish for spawning">.

I've mainly been feeding California Blackworm (Lumbriculus variegatus) lately, purely because <"I've got a culture method"> that supplies all I need, but they are really just small aquatic "earthworms".No, I've found that there are definitely some worms they don't like, particularly <"Eisenia foetida">.

Some fish are fine with segments from larger worms, but ideally you want a continual supply of small worms, that can be fed whole.

cheers Darrel
Thanks heaps for your advice Darrel, I've got some dried Australian Blackworms from my pet shop, but am looking to start a live culture. Think I might go for brine shrimp, do you ever feed them?
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
do you ever feed them?
Not recently, I don't have enough tanks to really require it, and I'm quite happy to have relatively few fry survive. This isn't an area where soft water fish are very popular and re-homing, even a limited number of young fish, can be problematic.

I keep very weedy tanks and I find that feeding microworms, Daphnia and whatever the fry can find for themselves, is fine for me.

Most people will hatch and feed BBS, often every day to both adults and fry.
but am looking to start a live culture
They are very easy to culture, using the "plants" method in the linked thread.

cheers Darrel
 

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