apisto's behaviour

[demented pea]

I have a new trio of fire red apistos. These are my first cichlids and although I know a little about them and a lot about the tank etc I am needing to learn about what constitutes ok behaviour and what is worrying.

I have a male and two females...one female is a bright orangey yellow and the other is somewhat paler, the male is orange.

I know that the brighter female is probably the dominant one and she certainly makes the other girl keep her place. The dominant female also tends to sort out the male and there is a lot of open mouth posturing between them and some bashing too.

Do they like each other or are they about to kill each other? I know cichlids are bossy and aggressive but what is "normal"? He flickers his tail at her lying over on his side a bit and so on but she hits him and flares and shows her mouth to him!

The less dominant female also flares and wiggles when he comes by but she seems to want to be noticed?

Sorry for the essay but I want to learn asap and lots....

Oh I have 60L tank which has a huge external filter and has flowerpot caves and small rooty branches and some plants and bogwood. I have a few pygmy corys and a small shoal of galaxy rasboras(8)

 

[briztoon]

Sounds like typical apisto behaviour to me. As long as the tank is densely scaped with plants, driftwood and leaves (oak and beech leaves, as well as alder cones, are commonly used by UK hobbiests) and two or three pots per female, they should be fine.

The "huge" external filter may not be the best thing for the apistos. They typically like slow moving water, so usually a sponge filter or a small HOB filter is sufficient. High flow or currents can stress apistos.

 

[prototop]

Hey,

I'm new to apistos as well.

I bought a trio agassizii about two months ago. Turned out there were no male among them. So a week ago I bought one. At first, the two most dominant females would bully him and he would shoot into the leaflitter just at the mere sight of a female. But slowly he got more confident and started challenging the dominant female. This played out the way you discriped it, with a bit of fighting. And when he had asserted his dominance with her, the same thing happend with the other one. This toke a few days. By now it's the other way around. Everytime he sees a female, he chases her into the leaflitter. From what I have understood, this is the way it works. A dominant male only want females that are ready to breed within his territory. If you don't have leaflitter, just to be safe, it's properly best if the entrance to the flowerpots are only big enough for the females to get into them. It also makes them feel more secure when they are ready to breed.

Hope you will keep us posted on how it works out.

 

[demented pea]

They seem to be doing the same as everyone elses fish which is great..

Hi briztoon , although my filter is huge it has controllable flow settings and is not making the tank like a washing machine!!! It has nice gentle flow and the spray bar allows me to give water movement on the surface without bashing the fish around.
But thanks for the advice, I appreciate people replying.

Prototop (sorry if spelt wrong,dyslexic:tongue I did some research before I bought these guys as I have learnt from my mistakes as new fishkeeper with tropical community tanks......... I don't buy fish now without driving my lfs mad with endless questions....bothering the fishkeeping community and so on! I have had to rehome some tank busters due to over enthusiasm and bad advice from shops.

let me know how your lot are doing? I would love to know how many fry you end up with?!

I know cichlids have greater requirements so I found out the basics++ and am going on learning.


The tank has a little fleet of galaxy rasboras(wrong continent) and a small shoal of pygmy corys (these are so cute) I might change the rasboras to another tank and find some tiny dither fish instead not exactly biotope but liking the same water.

Can't put them in the comm'ty tank as the gouramies will eat them!

 

[CopabX]

Your fish are acting the same as mine, although they may have some territorial issues. I've found that my apistos (same species as yours) don't like to claim a territory with a lot of traffic going though there, and the rasboras/cory's may be causing that. Once they find the apistos find their own space all is good though.

 

[demented pea]

The rasboras are keeping to the plants...so I don't see them so much. The corys are soooo tiny and substrate coloured so I have trouble seeing them too. The apistos don't seem to even notice them now, they like staring at the shrimp though!

The Apistos have several plant pots, bogwood and rootwood flint stones with holes in so they have lots of options for territory and seem to be settling in to the places they like.

I guess I am unused to these tough, rough little blighters when my other community fish behave like this I worry!

 

[prototop]

Well, it seems my fish are in the mood.

My subdominant female was courting the dominant female. A bit frustrating that she does not seem to know the basics of where babies come from. Fortunately the dominant female does, cause the next day she was courting the male. Yellowish in colour, markings on the head only and going into acrobatic stances in order to show the male her belly. At first the male didn't know what was going on and would swim away, with the female following. In the end though, she managed to get him to follow her into the leaflitter. Haven't seen her since, so keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Mike Wise]

My guess is that your subdominant female wan not 'courting' the dominant female, but actually showing submissive behavior.

 

[prototop]

Back when I didn't have a male, i saw the dominant female doing the same thing, towards the subdominant, and vice versa, eggtube popping out and all. Figured that would be over, now that I got a male. It just seems a little excessive, but your probably right.

 

[demented pea]

My apisto girls have both found their caves and are being really mean to the male. He just hangs around looking subdued. Will he get interested in the girls when he is a bit older?
They do all seem ok and I wondered if the keeping the male"fish-pecked" was normal. I have taken out the rasbora and there are 5 cardinal tetras in there now along with more cherry shrimp than I know what to do with......man those things breed.

I have tried to break up lines of sight too so that the three fish can escape one another.

I was told recently that when these fish are bred they are fed hormones to colour them up? Is this true?

 

[Mike Wise]

Your 60 L tank is the minimum for a trio of most apistos. It really depends on how densely decorated it is. As long as the male isn't being physically abused, then you should be OK. Just keep an eye on them. BTW cardinals are one of the worst dither fish for an apisto breeding set-up. They are notorious fry predators.

As for hormone color enhancement, well I haven't heard of it in A. agassizii Fire Red. Still, if these are coming from SE Asia, then it's possible. The breeders there have a history of this.