Apistogramma lineata info?

[anewbie]

Is much known about a. lineata? Are they true blackwater (I presume so but maybe not?); are they aggressive or more passive species? I know someone in the uk kept them in a large community aquarium with success (with geo et all) and they bred constantly; i dont' want them for a community tank but rather a 20 long but want something more passive that i can grow otu some very small c. hastatus. Probably a lousy idea but who knows.
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This was the only info i could find:

Apistogramma lineata | Biotope & First live photo! - CE Fish Essentials

We are in the mid to lower Rio Atabapo, Colombia and back from travelling for many days exploring the Upper Atacavi river in Venezuela. We stop to prepare lunch next to the native ‘Piroa’ community of Gualloval Vitina, this village are the only natives of ‘Piroa’ descent along this river, the...

cefishessentials.com

Which indicates very hot water fish (83-85) and blackwater but not much else was said.

 

[MacZ]

No 1 research tools:

Fishbase:

Apistogramma lineata summary page

fishbase.de

South American water parameters:

Water values South America (Map pH) - Südamerikafans

The water values have an essential role for fishes and plants in the water. Do you know the values of the waters of South America?

www.suedamerikafans.de

Tom C's Apistogramma Homepage:

Welcome to Toms Homepage

And the original species description:

http://repository.humboldt.org.co/bitstream/handle/20.500.11761/31452/14.pdf

That should offer enough information. Also use deduction. There is more to that article you linked than what you wrote here. It also says flooded forest area, so that tells a bit more about the habitat, e.g. you'll need lots of leaf litter.
The numbers in that article are extreme values from the dry season. As soft water as possible (conductivity under 50µS/cm) is a good start, temperatures around 26-27°C are definitely sufficient. You don't have to recreate the numbers.

i dont' want them for a community tank but rather a 20 long but want something more passive that i can grow otu some very small c. hastatus

That is automatically a community tank. Grow out the Corydoras, then get the Apistogramma.
Do you want to breed the A. lineata?

 

[anewbie]

No 1 research tools:

Fishbase:

Apistogramma lineata summary page

fishbase.de

South American water parameters:

Water values South America (Map pH) - Südamerikafans

The water values have an essential role for fishes and plants in the water. Do you know the values of the waters of South America?

www.suedamerikafans.de

Tom C's Apistogramma Homepage:

Welcome to Toms Homepage

And the original species description:

http://repository.humboldt.org.co/bitstream/handle/20.500.11761/31452/14.pdf

That should offer enough information. Also use deduction. There is more to that article you linked than what you wrote here. It also says flooded forest area, so that tells a bit more about the habitat, e.g. you'll need lots of leaf litter.
The numbers in that article are extreme values from the dry season. As soft water as possible (conductivity under 50µS/cm) is a good start, temperatures around 26-27°C are definitely sufficient. You don't have to recreate the numbers.


That is automatically a community tank. Grow out the Corydoras, then get the Apistogramma.
Do you want to breed the A. lineata?

Believe it or not i'm having a hard time deciphering the information you provided which i looked at before making my post. For example I can't find the location in the map; just because they are found in blackwater doesn't mean they require blackwater (though most species do better in such); 80f might be sufficient but would 84 full time be ok?
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with the cory my plan is to remove the c. hastatus after they get larger; the real question is the species docile enough they can co-mingle. Some apisto are quite aggressive - my wc cockatoo will kill anything that walks into their territory (which is ok i guess since i have them with a bunch of very old (genetically) inbred guppies that are rather deformed anyways).
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Anyway a bit depends on the temp the c. hastatus should probably be kept around 78 with 84 being way too warm - still if 84 is good for a. lineta i could put them with the discus.
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ok looking on another map that shows it is near the corner of venz/brazil/columbia; i found the river temp is 28-30c which is 83-86.

 

[MacZ]

For example I can't find the location in the map

Colombian/Brazilian Border, right next to Inírida. The parameter map has at least 5 values for the Atabapo. All say blackwater, no matter what season. The only value really changing is temp, between 26 and 31°C. Just use google maps in another tab and search Rio Atabapo, then you'll find it.

with the cory my plan is to remove the c. hastatus after they get larger; the real question is the species docile enough they can co-mingle. Some apisto are quite aggressive - my wc cockatoo will kill anything that walks into their territory (which is ok i guess since i have them with a bunch of very old (genetically) inbred guppies that are rather deformed anyways).

I have seen every dwarf cichlid at least showing some aggression towards other fish, especially around their main feeding area. Can't say anything about A. lineata, though.

And about the temperature... After looking up some things about the Corydoras and looking at the map I'd just do 25°C, but that's more of a foul compromise. You wanna play it safe, don't try the combination.

 

[Mike Wise]

Just treat A. lineata like you would A. uaupesi or A. iniridae and you should be fine.

 

[anewbie]

Just treat A. lineata like you would A. uaupesi or A. iniridae and you should be fine.

cept that i never kept any of those species - glasser sez 78 to 86 for inirdae

Apistogramma iniridae - Aquarium Glaser GmbH

Sadly this beautiful dwarf cichlid is only occasionally available, but currently we were able to import once more beautiful, fully grown specimens. The fish display all the behaviour that makes the keeping of these fish so desirable. Like its close relative A. uaupesi, which differs from A...

www.aquariumglaser.de

bob website sez 76-80 but indicates ph 3.5 was required to spawn them ouch. hum will did i keep that bottle of acid.
bob has a nice write up on uaupesi but doesn't list temp but sounds similar to lineta but more docile.
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Ok that was informative - a lot more info on those two species. Not sure i'll get the ph below 5.5 but i we will see.

 

[Mike Wise]

pH 5.5 should work if everything else is correct.

 

[anewbie]

pH 5.5 should work if everything else is correct.

Well what i can say is they don't turn yellow like other species; should probably hatch some bbs soon:

I don't think this is a pair forming species but i can say that after the first week they are much more calm (m/f behavior) with very little aggression by the male. This is very different than my winkelfleck where he will go searching the entire 29 looking for the female to yell at.
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Didn't even realize she had actually laid eggs until she brought the spawn out. The only hint was her retrieval after morning feeding but it was only marginally subtle.

 

[rasmusW]

congrats.

-r

 

[anewbie]

@Frank Hättich @Tom C

I have a question on my a. sp Blutkehl - first they remain clear with almost no colour unlike the images on Tom's pages which have red on the tail (to be truthful they do have a touch of red on the mouth but it is very small). Does this mean this is from a different catch location than Tom's or a different species or possible hybrid like the ortegai.

The other question is do you know the catch location temperature. Tom's website has:
Rio Atabapo, Rio Inirida and Rio Guaviare (Colombia)
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Part of the reason i ask is they finally spawned again and i'd like to make sure the temp is correct. I had been keeping them around 80-81 when i thought they were a. lineata but lowered it to 78 when i was corrected by Frank. Also I suspect the same exporter was used for these as the as they hybrid ortegai which has me concern.

(if you need new pictures it will be a while since the female and male are hiding - the female with her frys under a leaf and the male from the female).


This is an older picture of the male and female:

 

[Frank Hättich]

I have a question on my a. sp Blutkehl - first they remain clear with almost no colour unlike the images on Tom's pages which have red on the tail (to be truthful they do have a touch of red on the mouth but it is very small). Does this mean this is from a different catch location than Tom's or a different species

Color and it's intensity depends on many things like food, ligthing, color of substrate, water conditions, dominance etc. Different populations of a species can of course also show different colorations and even within a single population there can be differently colored types (this is called polychromatism). I'm not able to tell you the reason for your male being colored differently than Tom's.

or possible hybrid like the ortegai.

I would not worry about this in case of A. sp. Blutkehl.

The other question is do you know the catch location temperature. Tom's website has:
Rio Atabapo, Rio Inirida and Rio Guaviare (Colombia)

I would not worry about this either. I kept and bred all my Apistos at about 26°C. I only adjiusted temperatures for the next spawn, if the offspring's sex ratio turned out to be very skewed. Sometimes this helped, often not ;-)

 

[anewbie]

I sat watching these little frys with a magnifying glass; i'm amazed they could fit bbs in their tiny little mouths. One guy chased 3 or 4 different shrimps until he found a small one he could eat; on the leaf you can see the relative size of the shrimp to the fry. I'm trying to take extra good care of these since the mother went so long between broods. Definitely not like the wolli which want to breed every couple of days. Also i really like this species behavior - not too friendly not too aggressive - just right. What i'll do with the fry is another matter.... hopefully i can keep a few with the parents. I think there is someone who wants a few who lives not too far so i'll give some away. of course i'm getting ahead of myself it remains to be seen how far they get - i definitely find them more demanding than other fishes i've bred. The mother is very nervous and resents my insertion of bbs; also i think having a few n. morthenthaleri in the aquarium was a really bad idea - when the frys get larger i'll try to remove them - maybe if it was a 29 instead of a 20 it would work better.

 

[anewbie]

This is an updated picture of the aquarium - if you look with a magnifying glass you might see 30 to 50 frys around dad (on the right); mom is on the left. I know the tank is not well scaped so no need to go into that. I've heard of couples that don't sleep together and this is one such couple with the female spending most of her time on the left and the male on the right - occasionally he goes over there to pick a fight but not very often.

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top during water change (above is just after the tank was refilled):

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I guess the thing i have discovered is plants grow really well in this environment.

 

[anewbie]

Well - no picture - and i swear she never really nested but already she has another litter of babies. The bad thing is the previous set now feel rejected because she snaps at them. At least daddy is friendly with them. This of course means since she is keeping the new frys up front i have to feed them in the back so as not to encourage them to get snapped at. Hum. One of these days i'm gonna have to figure out how to remove them. You see the tank above it won't be fun trying to stick a net in that. I"m actually thinking of solving the problem by increase the tank to a 65 - that way i can just keep all 40 of them yea right like that is going to fix anything. Obvoiusly i haven't given this a lot of thought. Oh well first thing first hatch more bbs.

 

[Mazan]

You really should try the plastic bottle trap method, it works really well for catching small cichlids, for those fry just squirt some live Artemia in the traps and you’ll soon catch most of them. I caught all (except 1) of my Guianacara fry in these traps in one morning and I didn’t even have any live food. No disturbance to the plants and very little stress for the fish. You might catch the adults as well though…

 

[anewbie]

You really should try the plastic bottle trap method, it works really well for catching small cichlids, for those fry just squirt some live Artemia in the traps and you’ll soon catch most of them. I caught all (except 1) of my Guianacara fry in these traps in one morning and I didn’t even have any live food. No disturbance to the plants and very little stress for the fish. You might catch the adults as well though…

Yea - but i have to be careful to not catch the 1 day old frys with them. I'll work on something when the 2nd group gets a bit larger. She really should do a better job letting me know she is brooding.

 

[anewbie]

Color and it's intensity depends on many things like food, ligthing, color of substrate, water conditions, dominance etc. Different populations of a species can of course also show different colorations and even within a single population there can be differently colored types (this is called polychromatism). I'm not able to tell you the reason for your male being colored differently than Tom's.

I would not worry about this in case of A. sp. Blutkehl.

I would not worry about this either. I kept and bred all my Apistos at about 26°C. I only adjiusted temperatures for the next spawn, if the offspring's sex ratio turned out to be very skewed. Sometimes this helped, often not ;-)

Frank I have a question on species - here are some new pictures:

This is the same fish as pictured further up in the thread but they dropped the black lower markings which identified them as a. sp Blutkehl; from these pictures do they still have anything that would identify them as Blutkehl as oppose to Lineata ?

I have about 20 to 40 frys of various age with some close to sexual maturity - this is the most docile species i have with no obvious aggression between males or females (so far?).

 

[Frank Hättich]

This is the same fish as pictured further up in the thread but they dropped the black lower markings which identified them as a. sp Blutkehl; from these pictures do they still have anything that would identify them as Blutkehl as oppose to Lineata ?

From these pictures it's only possible to identify them as an iniridae-group species.

 

[anewbie]

From these pictures it's only possible to identify them as an iniridae-group species.

Interesting so i need them to display the other markings to turn back into sp blutkehl - i mean i presume since they showed the marking once they are sp blutkehl but it would be easy to mis identify them if they don't show the markings. I am actually not sure what triggers the markings to show - maybe courting. I've seen two males (f1s or f1 and original) display a few time to each other but the markings haven't come back.

 

[Frank Hättich]

Usually the markings should be visible when the fish are displaying (and in females too).
If merely one of your males has ever shown these markings once, I doubt that they are A. sp. Blutkehl.