Apistos - Oh, what fun!

[Kenny Poh]

Hi all,

I'm Kenny and hail from Singapore!

In all my 20 yrs of fishkeeping, I've never kept these dwarfs cichlid before, and I must say, I'm stunned and fascinated by their beauty, variety, and best of all, their brooding characteristics!

Anyway, eversince I've gotten introduced to them a few weeks back, I've gotten a few of them in my heavily planted 90 gal( 4ft by 2 ft by 2ft) tank. They consist of a trio of A. cacatouides ( 1double red male, 1 double red female, 1 wild female), a pair of A 'Sunset', and a pair of A. veijita.

Along with them, there're about 80 other assorted pencil fishes (mainly Nannostomus beckfordi, N. marginatus, N. eques), some ottocinclus, 5 SAEs, 1 L series pleco and some yamato shrimps.

The male cacatouides is the dominant one, he proudly patrols the entire tank, whilst the rest just lurks around. The A. 'Sunet' pair are the smallest and the most submissive ones, having being reduced to some plain looking fishes with stripes. One of the cacatuoides female and the viejita female are in their breeding garb, but they don't seem to be interested, nor holding down any territory.

My question is, given my setup and the number of apsitos in there, will any of them breed in the tank ( 4ft by 2 ft by 2ft)?

Oh yes, my parameters are :

pH =6.3-6.5 with CO2 injection
kH= 2 dH
gH = 3-4 dH
ammonia, nitrite = undetectable
nitrate < 10ppm
Lighting = 8 x 36 W (plenty of shades due to thick growth of plants and a big driftwood centrepiece)

I'm just a beginner in apistos, and it'll be just a bonus to have them breed in my tank!

Oh ye experienced ones, your comments please!

Cheers,

Kenny
Cheers,

Kenny

 

[farm41]

All three species may breed in your tank, if they can find their own territory to defend.

 

[skwelch]

i dont believe your from singapore, your english is way good hehe
have you lived in england for a while by any chance??

oh yeh, fish
what a great sounding tank you have, got any pics?

i have no experience on putting more than 1 species of apisto's in one tank so cant really comment, but with that much space i cant see why not
do you use RO or are you lucky enough to have those water params out of your tap?

have fun with those apisto's 8)

 

[Kenny Poh]

Hi skwelch,

Haha, in Singapore, English is our first language! I'm a Singaporean Chinese, and sadly, Mandarin had been relegated to being a 2nd language, and I'm quite embarassed to tell you that many Chinese Singaporeans aren't proficient in their mother tongue.

Oops, I digressed! I don't need to use RO in this part of the world. In fact, the reading in gH and kH comes from the potassium and magnesium salts I add for the plants. However, choramine has been high these months, and I'd have to pre-treat the water before using it for water change.

Well, I really don't know if they will breed, for now. The female cacatouides had been treated for hexamita with metronidazole, so I'm not sure if that bout had sterilsed her. With strong lighting, I can probably see some eggs in her, and she's a little yellow, but she's isn't exactly that responsive to the male's advances.

The viejita pair is more lovey dovey, but I doubt that they'll breed any sooner. You see, I've gotten them only days back, and they were not kept in pristine water condition and look slightly under nourished. So , I figure it'll take a while to condition them.

I feed the inhabitants in the tank with live daphnias and frozen blood worm mainly, and supplement these with tetra bits.

Tell me I'm lucky, because I just live beside an area with fish farms, and I'm able to obtain live daphnias every single day, haha!

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[Neil]

Kenny Poh,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Your tank is big enough and you have the right water conditions for both the cacatuoides and, probably, viejita to successfully breed. Whether they actually can defend their fry to maturity is another matter, but I wouldn't be suprised if you had some fry make it. The sunsets are a little different fish though. When they grow up a little more, it is possible that your cacatuoides male will no longer be the dominant fish in the tank. A 4'x2'x2' tank might just be about the size that they want and may ruthlessly defend all of it, if they decide to spawn. I consider A. atahualpa one of the most aggressive apistos :twisted: . Additionally, I have only had success(actual free-swimming fry) spawning them in extreme water conditions (4.5pH and virtually no hardness), but that won't change the fact that they may try to spawn in your water conditions and developing the behavior that I mentioned. Don't run to move them, just beware of the possibilities down the road.

Good luck,
Neil

 

[Melvin_Lim]

yo kenny

you live in pasir ris ah? live daphnias daily...woo... lucky apistos.

quick question, tetra bits are pretty hard, do you pre-soak them before feeding?

i only feed my apistos frozen blood worms as they refuse any other food.

apisto that i have now;

a. bit - 1 pair in 2ft tank
inka50 - 1 pair in 1.5 ft (about 10 juves in 1ft)
a. agazz alenq - 1 pair in 1.5ft (20+ juves in 2ft)
a. viejita - 1 pair in 2ft
algodon II - 1 female guarding 30+ fries in 2ft (papa died a few days ago)

apistos that died (sob sob);

a. agazz rio tapajos - 1 pair
macmasteri - 1 pair

you can also check out this website for local apisto news and tips

www.petfrd.com

enjoy this wonderful hobby
cheers
melvin

 

[Kenny Poh]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the advise! I didn't realise that they are that aggressive. For now, the male doesn't look anything like those picture perfect Sunset, he's showing stripies and bars, lol! The female is slightly yellow though.

Yeah, I'm not too optimistic about the frys making it too, but for the time being, I'll be happy to let nature runs its course in this artifical environment.

Hi Melvin,

Yes, I do live in Pasir Ris, and the fish farms are just a few streets away!

For tetra bits, I don't pre-soak them, but rather just immerse them in the tank for a couple of seconds before releasing them in strategic spots for those shy apistos. For the cacatuoides pair, I can hand feed them.

The daphnias are the best bet for those shy ones, as most of the frozen worms would have been snapped up by the pencils and the rest before they even touch the bottom! I'd usually wash and then throw in 1 big bag worth of daphnias in the evening, which should last for a couple of hours. There'll still be some of them that survives till the next morning, for the fishes to snack whilst I'm working.

Wow, you sure have a lot of apistos, don't you? For me, I'll just keep them in my community tank for now, find out more about them, before going ahead and set up species only tank for them to breed and raise their young.

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[Melvin_Lim]

Hi Kenny

will try feeding tetra bits tonight

live daphnias.... hmmm :idea:

cheers
melvin

 

[Kenny Poh]

Hi all,

Yup, I think my cacatuoides pair finally spawned!

Yesterday, saw the female turning even more yellow than her usual self, and was seen chasing and enticing the male to follow her. Both were flaring at each other, and the female would turn to her side and show him the belly. She then dart back into a thicket of plants, possibly making use of a hideout behind my centrepiece driftwood, with the male following her. Everytime the male emerges and started wandering around the tank, she'd follow and enticed him back again.

I returned after a couple of hours and I thought that the spawning must be over. The male started wandering around the tank as he usually does, while the female had virually disappeared out of sight, and I have not seen her since.

Well, I hope that these are signs that someting good is coming. While I must concede that fry survival in a community tank like mine may not be high, this has however, given me enough impetus to venture into setting up some apisto breeding tanks, and I'll do just that after more careful planning and reading up!

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[ming]

Kenny, from my experience, the female will stay in her home while waiting for the babies to hatch, usually going only as far as the entrance to her home but never leaving. She will only eat if something comes falling her way, but otherwise, she'll just protect her eggs for a few days until its hatched.

 

[Kenny Poh]

Pardon my ignorance, but how long does it take for the eggs to hatch into wrigglers, and then for the wrigglers to become free swimming frys?

So far, I've only seen the female coming out from where I think she spawned, when I started feeding the fishes (live daphnias) in the tank. She'd venture rougly a square foot and a half out from the spawning site, eat her fill, and then return back to the site, and repeats this until she has eaten enough. Once she's full or that there's no more daphnias left, she'd disappear for the rest of the day, only to re-emerge during feeding time.

Haha, it's really quite fun to see her defending her territory against other dwarfs in there. She was seen fighting tooth and nail with a stray cacatuoides male twice her size! It was so fierce that I removed that male for fear of having him injuring her.

The father of the spawn is quite nonchalant actualy, doesn't really care abt the female, although he's about the only dwarf that is allowed to go near her.

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[Kenny Poh]

Yeah, it's been a week from the probably spawning of my caca pairs, and finally, the female had emerged with a small batch of frys!

Well, they're not exactly that bold to make forays out into the open, but the frys were seen foraging amongst the tennellus carpet towards the back of the tank, with a moderately thick canopy of hygrophila difformis just above them.

The female had so far been doing a relatively good job at protecting the frys, chasing every fishes within the vicinity away. And the male caca, too, is now taking a more active role in parental care. He is seen to be by the side of the mom and frys more regularly, helping the female out in chasing away intruders and taking turn with the female to herd the frys.

The parents are seen using their caudal fins to fan the substrate and generate some detritus up, which the frys then swarmed and seemed to be picking out food from these detritus. Sometimes, the parents would alos take in something from the substrate, chew a bit and then spit out small particles, presumably helping the frys look for food. Am I correct with my observation?

Anyway, pardon my indulgence, it is really the first time I've spawned a dwarf cichlid.

Well, I've gone ahead and setup another 2 ft planted tank, which is filled with java ferns and anubias nanas, and a small patch of Echi. quadricostatus. It has only 30W of fluoro light, which worked out to be about 1.5W/gal, and CO2 bubbled in at 1 bubble per 3 seconds. As for a pair of apistos, I haven't decided yet. They'll be the last inhabitant to go in there, as I intend to stock it up with yamato shrimps, ottocinclus and pencil fishes (dither/target fishes) first.

Boy, am I having fun!

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[Neil]

Yeah, it's been a week from the probably spawning of my caca pairs, and finally, the female had emerged with a small batch of frys!

Congratulations!

Well, I've gone ahead and setup another 2 ft planted tank,

Could be just the next in a long line

Boy, am I having fun!

You and me both.

Neil

 

[Kenny Poh]

I've put a pair of viejitas in the 2ft tank on Thursday afternoon and guess what, they spawned last evening!

This pair was given to me by a friend who gave up the hobby. He had never succeeded in spawning them the 4 mths he had them. They spent 2 weeks in my 4fter planted tank, till I decided to give it a try and placed them into my 2 fter.

The pair looked quite thin when I got them, as they were only lightly fed with tetrabits all the time they were with my friend. Though the male was 'pumoed' up after 2 weeks of moderately heavy feeding with live daphnias and bloodworm, the female improved but still looking thinner than the male.

It was then I bought another female on standby. On thursday afternoon, I placed the original pair into the 2fter. However, I got a little impatient on Friday morning. That was when I decided to throw in the new female. The original pair then attacked the new girl very fiercely, so much so that I had to remove the frightened female within 15-20 mins.

Perhaps that did the trick, cos when I returned home last night, the female is all holed up in a small cave underneath a driftwood, looking very brightly coloured. She occasionally came out and chased the male away, and then returned back to the same spot. though I couldn't see the eggs, i'm pretty sure that this was it, as with my cacatuoides pair in the 4fter.

With only 5 ottocinclus in the tank, I hope that at least some frys get to survive and grow, so wish me luck!

Cheers,

Kenny