Apisto help!

[Apsnake]

Hi I'm new here have been keeping apistos for a while with mixed luck I have kept cacatuiodes, nijsenni, hongsloi and borelli aswell as gold and blue Rams and kribensis. Have been looking around at biotopes for different apistos and have noticed some live in concentrated numbers. My question is how many apistos of the same species could be kept in one tank with no other fish. I know males fight and females too but was curious if a colony of apistos would be even slightly appropriate. I'm not looking for how many not to keep i just would like a maximum number for say a 55g thanks look forward to your replays

 

[boofeng]

Welcome to the forum, Apsnake.

I think many people do keep apistos in colonies, and when I browsed Dr Romer's Cichlid Atlas he does mention that some apisto species aren't suitable for keeping as pairs, but rather as colonies (e.g. eremnopyge), to diffuse aggression.

I keep my A. trifasciata in a very heavily planted, barely filtered, 90x40x40 cm tank (about 140 litres, so a bit smaller than a 55 gallons), which holds about 10 adults and at any time 20-80 fry/juves. Fins do get nipped when things get crowded, at which point I remove as many juves and sub-adults as I can trap. A weird side effect of that is they have become rather shy compared to my fish kept as pairs. I guess seeing human hands come in to set traps which remove your fellow fish has that effect?

Or maybe not... hmm. I feed them with a toothbrush and a turkey baster, and the old females (Czech stock) still eagerly look for food when I wave these about, but all the tank-bred fish take cover instead. They come out to feed on worms and bbs drifting down the water column, after the tools are gone. Could be because the "Adam" fish which I started the colony with was a wild-caught male? I've since added genes from Taiwan stock though, but no change. Almost as if the young fish take behavioural cues from the older fish. It's fascinating. Anyway, I'll try to find a photo later.

*****

Actually I've been wondering my own question about colonies, so can I hijack your thread and ask my own somewhat related question?

Can I keep two species in a sort of dual colony tank? I have an opportunity to grab some wilhelmi fry, and am thinking of getting them to share my trifasciata tank. I know their ideal water parameters are a little different, but I've also read wilhelmi are quite tolerant of not-so-soft/black water, and I don't mind transitioning over to softer water. Please let me know if this is a bad idea!

 

[Apsnake]

Thanks boofeng! Good to be here finally have skulked this forum for months and not joined strangely! I'm just really curious everyone talks about biotopes with hatchets,Corys and tetras but if they live in large numbers in the wild then why not in a tank. I'm not talking the 1000s per puddle like their wild counterparts but I'd like to see their real personality as a group. Just to clarify as well I don't mean 1m 5f harems I would like to have mixed sexes. I have tried keeping different species together with mixed results as far as I can tell it's not the best idea, however my experiences doing this have showed some can coexist but always with a dominant species. For example I wouldn't try keeping cacatuiodes with trifasciata as their body shape is very similar and I'd imagine they'd fight, same for Wilhelmi and borelli. Don't know about Wilhelmi/trifasciata but I wouldn't advise it personally unless you can separate immediately as problems arise.

As for my biotope ideas I was looking at a pantanal style borelli tank in a 55g with optimum numbers of just borelli. The other possibility was to mix borelli and commbrae as they are occurring in the same areas. I'm in the uk so southern apistos would suit the temperatures and shocking Tap water better than say njisseni (which are a nightmare) would. I have a 55, 2x20g long,15 frytank and a 15 quarantine to work with although I do split the 20longs with dividers for pairs.

I'm not a complete newbie to apistos but I don't know anyone else who keeps them to assist me with my decisions and I would like to make a concrete choice of the best option as the tank is currently just mixed species and would like my tank to have that 'sparkle' again if you know what I mean! The reason I'm here is to get a good stocking idea based on borellis that's a bit different from the apisto hatchetfish biotopes I see everywhere, my tank is in your hands people! You could see your dream tank created in mine
Thanks guys
Apistosnake

 

[boofeng]

The Pantanal tank sounds like it'll be awesome! I personally love to see biotope tanks (that's why zoos are fun, right) - but keeping them is a whole other kettle of fish, so to speak. Kudos to those who do them!

I didn't set out to do a biotope with mine (still isn't - I keep random plants from all over). I was just trying to minimise cost (no electricity, filtration, etc), so I had to keep the bioload low. Ergo, one species only! (Not counting snails and shrimp.)

Thanks for sharing your experience with multi-species tanks - which species did you keep together? You're probably more experienced than I am with apistos - I'm pretty new to them! (I used to have a low-cost approach to keeping fish, and apistos cost at minimum 30 USD a pair here, so they were off the table until the past year when I got bitten by the fish bug.)

I'm not really thinking of maintaining both species together long-term - it's more like a phase-out of the trifasciata. I just can't imagine catching all of them right now. They're so numerous and the tank is very heavily planted. I'll get photos up ASAP so you can see what a nightmare it is catching any fish from there. Any tips for removing all fish from such a tank is most welcome! I currently use the DIY soda bottle minnow trap method, which reliably nabs several fish each time, but emptying the tank with that will take forever, and I'm sure some fish will wise up and never get trapped.

 

[Mike Wise]

Some things to think about. Yes, apistos can be found concentrated in high number in the wild - particularly during certain parts of the year. They live in the world's largest aquarium. A 55 tank is just a drop of water in comparison. In the wild, fish have the ability to leave an area if attacked; not so in an aquarium. In highly planted/structured tanks more apistos are able to hide from each other so more fish can be safely housed in such a tank, but I find densely populated tanks aren't as productive as those with more manageable number. This is probably because only the super-dominant males and females can establish long-term breeding territories. They must continually fight off other fish entering their territory and they expend more time and energy on territorial defense than breeding and raising offspring. If you aren't interested in raising many fry, then you can concentrate fish and see some interesting territorial (aggressive) behavior.

 

[Apsnake]

When I first started keeping apistos I didn't know much about them and mixed cacatuiodes and njisseni they seemed ok though the female njisseni hid a lot and the cacatuiodes were more dominant. I threw a pair of hongsloi into the mix and the njisseni became super aggressive and killed both of them. Borelli are very docile my male is bigger than any of my dwarf collection but gets pushed about by his female. It's swings and roundabouts most of the time. Also when removing my kribensis fry I removed the ornaments and siphoned them out with hose pipe into a 20l bucket. With a large water change daily and air stone this is there home for the beginning as it's easier to spot feed them.

Mike this seems like sound advice thanks. If I'm honest I'm looking to create a breeding pair and use the fry and the base for a biotope. having trouble breeding them at the moment and there isn't a great deal of specific information. My females taken a slight yellow tinge and the pair have been visiting a cave but no action yet temp is around 25 depending on room temp. Not sure to up temps like other cichlids to spur on breeding and would REALLY like to see a female in breeding colours to know what to look for. They have displayed a lot of courting behaviour fin slapping and following each other but nothing obvious to say there ready. In the same breeder I have spawned kribensis, gold and blue Rams. On that note I have read that Rams are difficult to spawn yet mine Deposited in a matter of days but borellis are known to be one of the easier apistos to breed yet nothing.the water seemed perfect for the others yet not for my fussy apistos. I'm not a skilled breeder but love to know my fish are in the right conditions to be natural and mate.