Apistogramma baenschi "Inka"

[Apistomaster]

I just ordered two trios of young "Inka's" from apistodave and so begins the rebuilding of my Apistogramma collection. I've just been maintaining A. borelli through several generations for awhile keeping my Apistos at less than zero.
I'll have them next week. I will begin accumulating a few other species new for me; A. trifasciatus, A hongsloi II and White/Gold A. caucatuoides. the latter two are meant more for production while the Inka's and Tri's are for expanding my experiences with ths genus.

I have most of the resources but thought I would ask around for some other aquarists' experiences with Inka's. Things like how picky they've been about any particular water chemistry and whether the females have been good parents or quick to eat their eggs.

So please share some of your experiences.
I know that if I followed my own generic advice I would give them a 125 gal tank and kick back and let nature take it's course but I don't have a spare large tank and will be trying to breed trios in 20 Longs.
I will artificially hatch any first spawns then allow them a chance to raise their own spawns. That is just my SOP to assure continued fish to work with should the originals suffer any of the fates common to Apistos one cares about. You know how it goes, the ones neglected seem to prosper and the ones you really strive to propagate tend to have "accidents."

 

[retro_gk]

I spawn mine in 5 and 10 gallon tanks (1 pair per tank, of course). Fairly straightforward to maintain and spawn. They tend to go off their food if nitrate levels go up but, this is true of most wild caught apistos.

 

[Graham]

I got a quartet of them from Dave about a month ago - 1 guy 3 gals. The ladies have formed a pecking order, but IMO there is plenty of space for them all in this tank (20 long). It is pretty "structured" with rocks, leaves, wood and plants, though.

The dominant gal has gone bright yellow in the past week, so something may happen soon. Granted, once the first spawn hits it may be a totally different scenario in there, but for some reason I think they'll be OK. They're with 5 golden pencils, 3 otos and 3 shrimp. The Inkas are certainly not like nijsenni females...they're acting more like a harem than not - even though I don't think they typically follow that mode. They even get along better than my trifasciata...so far.

 

[Graham]

A little update:

Monday night, the male spawned with 2 of the 3 females.
The females are occupying caves that are literally about 5 inches away from each other. They are facing opposite directions, though. One female picked the inside of a pile of slate and the other plowed up a big mound in front of a half-flowerpot on its side. These fish never fail to impress me.

Up to now, I've seen a few lip-lock tussles, but neither appears beat-up. I'm curious to see how things will go once the fry are out and about!

Mind you, this is all in a 20 long...the poor 4th Inka (can't tell, but appears subdominant female) isn't too happy with the living arrangement...

 

[Apistomaster]

Thanks to you all for your sharing your experiences with A. baenschi Inka.
Mine just arrived 2 days ago and they are still very small. They are going to need some time before they are really ready to spawn. I gave the trios 20L's which they share with spawning groups of Corydoras panda and C. hastatus.
Also some recent batches of Albino Ancistrus sp 3 pleco fry.

It sounds like they are unproblamatic species to keep and breed which is encouraging to hear. Guess all I can do for now is wait for them to grow out to breeding size. As our spawns occur perhaps we can check back in with how well they parent. Most of my Apistogramma have been egg eaters and have had to resort to artificial hatching and rearing with the exceptions of A. borelli and A. caucatuoides. I have raised many wild caught A. agassizi but never naturally.
There was a store near Seattle that used to get in "mixed Apistogramma sp" that were all wild caught. Mostly A. bitaeniata and A. agassizi for only $5.00 each. They closed down and I moved back to Eastern WA. Only a few Czech Republic Apistos ever show up around here and many of those have been fairly old fish and often only last about 6 months. I could get the wild caught Apistos to live 3 or 4 years.

 

[warbyd]

Hey I know this is an old post but I figured I'd tack my query onto here rather than starting a new thread on a similar topic...

I've got a pair of Apistogramma Baenschi / Inka 50 that I bought when they were only around 1cm TL, and was wondering what size/age these guys tend to start spawning and what methods people use to induce spawning?

Also wondering if I might be better off trying to source a 2nd female to give the fella some options...

They're currently in a ~25G tank with 6 neon tetras, 1 ~7cm bristlenose & 1x pakistani/yoyo loach (only introduced him to take care of a ramshorn snail outbreak in the tank, removing him in the next couple of days..), lightly planted and with 4 or 5 different caves around the tank.

Cheers,


Dave

 

[Apistomaster]

Dave,
I, the apistomaster, did not master A. baenschi.
I am one of those fish breeders who can breed some very challenging species yet flop when it comes to some species considered not too difficult. I never could get my baenschi to spawn but based on my observations, I think setting up a single pair will work better than in harems, at least in tanks less than 125 gals. A 10-20 gal would be the range of tank sizes I would try for a pair so your tank should be fine. I would probably leave the Neons out if breeding is your goal. I'm not a big fan of using dither fish or and catfish in my Apistogramma breeding set ups.

Apistogramma trifasciata and A. borelli are my favorite beginners Apistogramma species. Both are easily bred and attractive species.

 

[Tedstank]

Inka50 Breeding

Make them stop!!!!...lol
It is odd how these things work. I had approx 16 or so inka50's in a grow out tank..they were small. Within 2 weeks a pair formed and spawned!!!.. I had to move them...they can be nasty little buggers!!! I put the pair in a 20L tank and left the first eggs in the growout...was only about 12-15. Well, another 2 weeks and they have spawned in the 20L and I have about 25 babies. Mom and dad tolerate eachother, as the babies are now all over the tank.. Occasionally some are with him and some with her. I am hoping there might be a couple more sleeper males in the grow out tank...assuming that by removing the dominant male and new one will pop up!! Spawning the easy apistos is fun, but good grief, when the get going they wont stop!!!

I am convinced now that the best way to breed apistos is not to want them to. ie: leave them alone, feed them and enjoy them..they will fill your tank up with babies.

 

[leafish]

I ordered three pairs from Apistodave. I like them so much! Eventually I'm going to try and breed them though I'm not entirely sure how to do it. Right now I have a 20 gallon tank with a sponge filter but it's currently occupied with two Badis Assamensis that I'm trying to get to breed (it seems inevitable). Once those fry are a bit grown I plan on moving a strong seeming pair of apistos in there. In the meantime they're just hanging out in my 75 gallon - I think they might get started before I get a chance to move them though because they're definitely showing some signs. Some of them are much smaller than the others though and mostly focus on not getting beaten up.

What are people's takes on ph levels and making them breed? I live in Buffalo, NY and our water is naturally pretty high in PH. We have a RO water filter that we're going to start using exclusively and should get the ph down a bit. I've been told to stay away from Peat or any other "tricks" to get it to go down.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
You will need RO if you have very hard water. I don't like additives as well, but sphagnum peat isn't "a trick", it works as a natural "ion exchange resin" and has a high CEC. These exchange sites are naturally full of H+ ions, and the pH, TDS and dGH are lowered when H+ ions are swapped for for other cations (like calcium, Ca++).

There are quite a few posts about it on the forum, like this one: <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/another-peat-filtration-question.11247/>

cheers Darrel

 

[leafish]

Interesting, maybe I'll give it a try sometime. A local guy who I trust the opinion of a whole bunch said that it gets tricky with our water (Buffalo, NY) and can cause spikes in the PH. Basically, if the fish are doing fine with the tap water (and I'm actually starting to use RO water gradually because we have a RO filter) then I'm not going to mess with it.


Either way, the fish that Dave sent me are doing really well. I was wondering though, Dave, what were you feeding them? I should have asked this sooner. They're eating brine shrimp, some flakes and blood worms (though I cut back on the blood worms because they kept slipping out of their gills). They're growing really fast and the males are becoming much more colorful. They also seem like they're getting ready to breed which is a good thing and a bad thing - those little ones don't seem to stay away from the bigger ones at all! Luckily there doesn't seem to be any fin damage or anything yet. So yeah, that's the update...
I'm not in a hurry to put more fish in there but what other Apistos can I put in there that won't mix? I've read that some apistos won't recognize each other as being similar and therefore you don't have to worry about rival males/females and crossbreeding.

 

[Mike Wise]

IMHO a 20 long is just right for a pair of A. baenschi. More than a pair and you should expect problems with aggression and a good possibility of deaths. I definitely wouldn't keep 2 species in such a small tank.