Apistogramma baenschi

[briztoon]

G'day guys,

On Thursday I bought an Apistogramma Baenschi pair. On Monday evening they spawned. The female has dug out a cave under a mopani rootwood. In the photos below, you can see the pile of sand built up from her excavating. Unfortunately I can not get a good shot of the cave mouth due to the angle and the Java fern tied on to the mopani rootwood.


Female

Male

 

[Melanochromis]

You are VERY lucky it took only 4 days for your Inka to spawn. My pair took 4-5 months before they stopped trying to kill each other. But once they bonded they spawned every 2 weeks.

Nice fish you have, by the way.

 

[briztoon]

I have seen no aggression between this pair. This is the first time I have experienced this with apistos. She's a big female though, both male and female are approximately 5cm TL.

 

[Mike Wise]

Like other nijsseni-group species, the fish can be very choosy about who the choose as a spawning partner. If you're lucky, they bond right away and start breeding. If you're not, then it may take month (or never!) before they accept that there are no other options and accept what's available.

 

[briztoon]

It's interesting to find pair bonding apistos. Will the female allow the male to share the parental duties? or is it more like that she won't try and drive him away and he won't try and snack on the fry?

 

[Mike Wise]

In many nijsseni-group species, the male is accepted near the fry and helps protect them from other fish.

 

[Melanochromis]

In many nijsseni-group species, the male is accepted near the fry and helps protect them from other fish.

...if the female hasn't killed him first. I think mine always tried to do that right after the spawn. LOL

And I have some observation I want to share if you don't mind. I have twice seen two Inka females pair up with each other and lay eggs. The female-female couple would went berserk and attack all other fish in the tank including male Inkas. This is pretty frustrating to me. It's already difficult enough to get a bonded pair, and yet they chose to do a female-female pair instead of a viable one!!

To me, Inka is a fish have a lot of surprises for you, but most of the time it's not really in a good way!

 

[briztoon]

This pair has been very intersting to watch over the last week. The female dug out two other caves under driftwood, and each morning for the last four days I would wake up to find her guarding a different cave. On monday she had moved the wrigglers in to a cave at the very front of the tank, and I was able to shine a torch in and see the wigglers in the bottom of a pit. I am used to this type of behaviour from dwarf acaras, but this is the frist time I have seen this behaviour from an apistogramma species.

Today I have about 30 free swimming fry. They stayed pretty much in one spot all day, towards the front of the tank in the middle, swimming around the skeleton of an Indian Almond leaf and a driftwood branch. There are two dwarf pencilfish in the tank, and they are hiding out in some floating pipes. The male baenschi tends to keep his distance, because if he gets to close, he gets chased off.

I'm not very good at photographing fry, but for those of you who know what to look for, here are a couple of poor photographs.

 

[Melanochromis]

Congrats! I hope you'll get as many healthy fry as you want.

I think it's common for Inkas to keep moving the wrigglers. And this makes it pretty easy for us to manage too. Sometimes when the female moved her fry to a clay pot I can reach, I'd just pull out the pot and get all the fry at once quite easily, if I want to raise them in another tank for whatever reason.

PS. This is such a coincidence because just a couple of hours ago I pulled out Inka eggs from one of my community tanks. They are due to hatch anytime now!

 

[briztoon]

Thanks Melanochromis. I plan to leave the fry with the parents and see how they go. I'll pull the fry at 4 weeks if they are still alive. Here's a couple of more photos from today.

 

[sasikan]

great looking tank. hope all your fry make it!

 

[briztoon]

The fry have been free swimming for about two and a half weeks now. I still can't take photos of young fish to save myself, but can't resist trying anyway. The fry have pretty much scattered all over the tank now, and mum doesn't even try to keep them together. Both mum and dad just swim around keeping an eye on the fry and trying to scare off the agassizii male in the next door tank. It's actually a lot less stressful keeping a species where the male is allowed to help care for the fry.

 

[fish head]

Great stuff Briz, far out they have grown quick how big are they at present and a great shot of your male.

 

[briztoon]

Hi guys and gals,

A quick update. The fry have been free swimming for 6 weeks now and about about 1cm SL (2/5ths of an inch). I removed them from the parents two weeks ago and have set them up in a 30cm cube to grow out for a couple of weeks before they are moved to a larger tank. The parents spawned again and I now have 4 day old free swimming fry with the parents.

6 week old fry.

New mum (again). The four day old fry fled to the back of the tank when I put the camera up to the glass, while mum wasn't that fussed, held for a pose, and then went in search of her fry.

 

[Melanochromis]

Congrats. They are healthy-looking fry. They seem to grow quickly too, already showing the vertical bands !

I think you're keeping an Inka breeding journal that is parallel to mine.
Here's some pictures of my fry (and the dad) I took last night.
They were born just days apart from yours but I think yours are a bit larger aren't they?

 

[briztoon]

G'day Melanochromis,

Nice looking male and fry. Yes my larger fry show a lot of verticle banding. I'm not sure if your juveniles or my juveniles are larger, it's hard for me to tell with your over head photos. Yours certainly look to be well fed. Mine are fed twice a day, once on decapsulated brineshrimp cysts and once on Sera vipagran baby and recieve a 50% water change every second day. When they are a little larger and transfered to a larger grow out tank, they will be fed on earth worm flakes and Sera viapagran.

 

[Melanochromis]

Your babies already eat prepared food? That's really nice. I give mine live baby brine shrimps several times a day and they don't take small flake food yet.

Interestingly, I may be having problems with the vertical bands on the fish. The earlier Inka I bred don't have dark vertical bands like their parents. The bands are very faded and difficult to see. I don't know if the batch will grow up to be without bands as well.

 

[gerald]

The substrate color can affect their pigment development. If fry are raised on white sand or a bare glass bottom their melanophores might not develop normally. I dont know whether this effect is temporary or permanent. It might depend on their age and duration of "dark bottom deficiency".

 

[Melanochromis]

The substrate color can affect their pigment development. If fry are raised on white sand or a bare glass bottom their melanophores might not develop normally. I dont know whether this effect is temporary or permanent. It might depend on their age and duration of "dark bottom deficiency".

Wow, you sure that's possible? This is a new knowledge to me. Never thought of it before. If this is true, I'll probably have to adjust so many things :-(

 

[gerald]

I'm starting a new thread on this titled "Cichlid Color and Substrate" since it's no longer baenschi-specific.

Wow, you sure that's possible? This is a new knowledge to me. Never thought of it before. If this is true, I'll probably have to adjust so many things :-(