Apistos w/Discus?

[rballi]

I was able to land some A. cf. Eunotus "tail stripe" that Mike collected from Peru and was wondering what things I need to know about keeping a group of these guys in a 75 gallon tank with discus. Any experience on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mike Wise]

I'll be honest. Keeping Peruvian rainforest apistos at Discus temperatures will shorten their life span. Any spawns will produce 90%+ males. Otherwise, if the tank is suitably decorated with many hiding places for the apistos, they should do fine.

 

[rballi]

what if I kept the temperature on the low end of discus temps? like 82-84ish? I am doing a heavily planted tank so i dont want to nuke my plants either.

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

My experience keeping Apistogramma with discus has been universally 100% bad. I have lost them all with in a fairly short time around 1 year. Not only do they not take the higher temps well. If you are feeding live blackworms regularly as I do you end of with very fat bloated apistos. Not a good combination in my opinion. If the apistos are something special to you I would not risk it.

 

[rballi]

what kind of temps are talking about? I am planning around 84 at the max end of things as I am doing a planted tank as well...I am planning on feeding frozen brine shrimp as a main staple supplimented with flake and occasionally daphnia....

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

Your food sounds good. My discus tanks are all around 84° I think this is just too high for most Apistos. At least based on my experience.

 

[Mike Wise]

Ideally, most apistos do best below 80ºF/27ºC.

 

[Apistomaster]

I have kept many different Apistogramma species with Wild Discus over the years and I keep my Discus at 84*F and do not recommend any lower temps for Discus. It does shorten the lives of Apistogramma but if you have bred them and have spares it is not that big of a deal.
My personal favorite SA Dwarf Cichlid to keep with Discus is Dicrossus filamentosus. They have always done well in my Discus tanks.
I mainly keep wild Discus.

 

[apistodave]

storytime

Anybody remember Lisa Wrishnik?? She kept a cacatuoides pair in a 20 with a pair of Discus. Come spawning time for the cacs that little female spun the discus around, the discus would get attacked from the bottom and spin around trying to find their attacker-she kicked there butt.

meister how ya doing with the fire reds

 

[Apistomaster]

Just got them, Dave.
They are alive but a little soon to have bred them.

 

[animalmgc]

the rain has been generous this week so hopefully I'll see another spawn from my fire reds last yr thats when they spawned for me when i experimented with rain water in thier aquarium but come home after a long day out to a aquarium that sprung a bad leak and managed to empty its self luckily my fire reds survived but the fry didn't.The male has been trying to get momma excited but nothing as of yet