Apisto. macmasteri questions

[Cichlids1]

I've got a pair that I've had since May. Took me a while to get them started, but they had their first spawn around the first of August. Now, they are spawning every week to 10 days, but they are rather small spawns for such large dwarfs (Is that an oxymoron? Large Dwarf?). Maybe 20 to 25 eggs tops. I tried to cool them down, in hopes of conditioning them a little longer and hopefully getting a larger spawn from them. The only thing that did was speed them up. Evidently, they like the mid 70's better than the low 80's. I even cut out the live and frozen foods from their diet, they have only been getting flakes for the last month. Any thoughts on how I might increase their numbers? Anyone had similar experiences with these guys?

Thanks,
Ken

 

[Neil]

The first macmasteri that I ever spawned had very large spawns (100), but I have had less prolific spawns from some of the more recent ones. I am not sure what all the factors involved are, but it is safe to assume that, if the nutritional intake of the fish is increased, so will the brood size. When a fish is laying as often as yours they probably don't have time to produce a large amount of eggs. I would seperate the male and female for a couple of weeks and feed her well and then re-introduce them. Go back to the live frozen and keep the diet varied. If she has about 3 weeks to fatten up, she might well give you a larger spawn.
Neil