Apistogramma Agassizii grow out

[Andy452]

Hi All,

I have been growing out some Apistogramma Agassizii they are about 4 months old now.

I had maybe 30 in a bear bottom 20gal grow out tank with some moss covered drift wood. About a month ago (when they were ~3 months old) I moved 13 of the larger ones to a new 20gal tank.
The new tank had cycled media and was setup to accommodate Apistogramma ie sand capped substrate, some rocks, drift wood and planted (a couple of swords, lots of val, bacopa, and a crypt) though the plants do need to grow in a little more, there is still plenty of line of sight dividers and hiding spots. And there are 5 ember tetra as dither fish. Thus far there has been minimal aggression.

There were a few reasons I moved 13 of the fish, to provide more space to all the fish, to seperate some of the larger ones to make feeding them easier (ie lees competition for food), to get a better look at them to see which ones I might keep for myself and spot any that may need to be culled.
Among the 13 fish I moved as well as taking larger ones I also tried to ensure there were some females, in the new 20 gal there is probably 4 females out of the 13 fish.

Today when I was watching them I saw a female who was nice and yellow flick her tail and showing her belly to a male, they then ducked between a crack between 2 rocks where she had dug a bit of a pit and were clearly getting cheeky with each other! I was not expecting this as the fish are only 4 to 4n half months old. Also they are siblings and I dont want any in breeding so I dont plan to keep any of these fry if there are any, I suspect there will not be any fry as I think the eggs/fry would get eaten.

I'm worried that given a pair have spawned this will lead to increased aggression, what do you think I should do?

Also I'm wondering what is the best strategy for growing out Apistogramma Agassizii of this age? (I'd say for the 13 larger fish in the new 20gal their size on average is Male:~6cm Female: ~4cm)
- my initial thoughts were I wanted to keep 1 or 2 males and females. Then I could buy another pair and split them up and pair them up with my wish so I would hopefully end up with 2 new breeding pairs with good genetics (ie no inbreeding).
- should I decide now which ones I want to keep and is now the time to sell off the rest?
- is keeping a community of Apistogramma Agassizii a viable way forward for a few months or do you think i'm pushing my luck?

Thanks for you help and advise, regards
Andy

 

[yukondog]

I'm doing about the same thing your doing but with a boatload of Cac.,Hongsloi and albino krib fry, are you going to sell/ship or keep it local?
Pictures of parents?

 

[Mike Wise]

Well it's obvious that at least some of your fish are sexually mature at a young age. Six and 4 cm fish at 4 month indicates you did an excellent job. One way to prevent unwanted breeding in grow-out tanks is to remove males as soon as you can see them develop. My grow-out tanks are mostly bare except substrate and covered by 3 - 4" /7.5 - 10 cm lengths of ½"/1.25 cm diameter pieces of PVC pipe. When I clean the tank the pipes move around so none of the fish can establish a permanent territory.

As for breeding siblings, well most color enhanced domestic strains are developed by inbreeding. Inbreeding is not a bad thing if one is careful to cull specimens with undesirable traits. Outcrossing periodically is important, too.

 

[yukondog]

I try to remove the dominant males as they come of age, that allows the next male to start becoming the dominant one, in the end I have less sneaker's.

 

[Andy452]

Mike, Yukondog - thank you for your advise


Wow these guys are like rabbits!

So 2 days ago when i initially posted a pair had spawned between some rocks - I can not actually see if there are eggs, and today that female is not guarding the area as closely, so possible the eggs are gone already.


Now today I see another spawn under some drift wood! For this second spawn it looks to be a different female, I have know idea which male was involved.


Also I have some photos of a couple of the males.


Regarding age I should correct myself these fish are 5 months old as opposed to 4 months old as I initially stated - time got away from me
Also the 13 I moved to this new tank are the larger ones, the other ~20 in the remaining 20gal are notably a bit smaller. I think the reason these are of such decent size if their diet (micro worms, BBS and micro pellets) and that these 13 were the dominant feeders.

I'm really not sure what my next step will be. I dont have more tanks to raise more spawns, I already setup 2 x 20gal to grow out the first batch. So for these latest spawns I will let nature take its course and focus on raising the initial juvenile.
We have restrictions due to Covid-19 at the moment so going to the LFS is not so straight forward but when possible I will sell off some of these fish, I dont want to ship them.

I really just tried breeding them for myself initially just to see if I could, I did not intend to have multiple ongoing spawns at least not at this stage. In the future if I can establish a relationship with LFS then maybe I'll aim to breed more regularly. But at this stage just want to keep 4 or 5 of my first spawn.

In hind sight I think keeping the grow out takes simple (ie bare bottom would be easiest) is best this second tank I setup as more a community take to look a like nicer, it should serve this purpose ok once I limit the number on apistos to 4 or 5 but yeah for grow out a simpler tank would be easier.


//Andy