Apistogramma Borellii Community-ish Tank

[FishMonkey]

This is my AquaOne Oak 145 community-ish apisto tank.

The temperature hovers between 24.5-25.6c. I have started sofening the water by 10L RO + 4L Tap water (80PPM TDS 6GH/<1KH) as that's the easiest way to fill the buckets.

Stocking is;
-1M/5F apistogramma borellii
-5 coral red pencil fish (hopefully breed more)
-2 otocinclus (more or similar fish coming)
-1 sparkling gourami (rehoming one day maybe [who wants 1 tiny gourami)
-3 amano shrimp (rehoming)
-tiger shrimp (may survive the soft water/apistos)

Here's the male

Here's the cave's, one is already occupied

 

[FishMonkey]

Everything is going great apart from the Hygrophila corymbosa 'Siamensis 53B' which will be replaced by water wisteria in the following days.

Also thinking of adding some nice colored Ramshorn snails but don't know if these will do ok in such soft water or alternatively take over the tank with rapid breeding.

 

[Josh]

beautiful tank! It looks great!

 

[FishMonkey]

Thank you, just waiting for the plants to fill out a bit.

Small update; I now have 2 or 3 spawning females. One was in the film canister "cave's" at the front between the crypts but has since moved further back under the large bit of wood, think I will have to move them back and conceal them a bit better.

The Amano shrimp have now been re so lighting has been reduced until I can get some more algae eaters (more otos &/or ramshorns).

I'm also going to split that Amazon sword when the water wisteria comes, one half staying where it is and one slap bang in the middle nof that path down my aquascape aggression is minimum so far but no fry swimming about yet.

I'll keep this thread updated for a bit

 

[Tom C]

It's good to see someone keeping them in a spacy tank with fine-grained sand! And accompanied by only small fish, without Corydoras, Ancistrus, Plecos and other larger or aggressive fish.
Bravo!

 

[FishMonkey]

It's good to see someone keeping them in a spacy tank with fine-grained sand! And accompanied by only small fish, without Corydoras, Ancistrus, Plecos and other larger or aggressive fish.
Bravo!

Haha I would love to add some (dwarf) Corydoras Habrosus but I have a fear of them not understanding territory and loosing eyes. Not to mention its a tad too warm for them in there.

 

[FishMonkey]

Today I came home from my Nightshift and found one of the females had closed the door on her cave lol.

 

[Samala]

Will be very interested to see how the free-swimming fry play out with multiple brooding females. Keep us updated!

 

[FishMonkey]

I think it will be a week or two until I see fry and they are probably farm bred so it will take them a while to figure it out. In theory they should squabble over the fry but prioritise defending the fry from non brooding fish.

They have pretty passive disputes so far, a long away from harming each other. I think where a lot of people go wrong with harems is just getting one male and two females, that is hardly a harem...

A brooding female eating peacefully with other females (the photo doesn't do justice to how yellow she is atm);

I tried to split the Amazon sword but ended up destroying it... Next update will be when plats/snails arrive and/or fry appear.

 

[Andy452]

Nice looking tank, good work!

 

[FishMonkey]

Snails arrived

Shrimp are getting much more adventurous and the borellii still don't seem interested

Plants came a bit battered but will hopefully pull back before fry appear

 

[FishMonkey]

So hard to get a photo when they're this size but the first spawning female has brought her fry out.

Other fish are allowed extremely close surprisingly, when I had rams GBRs took 2/3 of the tank.

 

[FishMonkey]

I just realized the female is collecting food then spitting it out around her nest. Must be trying to feed her babies or saving it for later.

 

[FishMonkey]

The fry are actually pecking at the adult fish food she collected (Zoom In).

It's hard to get a photo as she gets the fry to pull back so I better stop with the photos for a bit. What lovely little fish tho

 

[FishMonkey]

First female has lost all her fry, I suspect the male or sparkling gourami but wouldn't be surprised if the coral red pencil fish played a part too. Two more have fry swimming around now, it's a learning process and plants are only going to get bigger.

This one had been missing for about a week. She had dug a hole under a rock, I only spotted her by chance and thought I would do an update.