Beat way to setup a breeding tank?...

[dwarflover]

Its been awhile since Ive been on here....but I have returned to get some insight.
Ive kept apistos for a few years now, and theyve bred without me really doing much.
About two months ago I purchased a lovely pair of apistogramma agassizii red flash( might not be the right name) with the intention of breeding them
I seperated the pair to a tank for themselves a month ago . Just yesterday they had their first spawn,but eggs were eaten after 24ish (probably more) hrs. I guess the male didnt do his job? They looked a bit white from what i could tell with a flashlight.
I did not expect their first spawn to work out, though I was still hopeful.

Anyway, my question is what can I do to ensure the pair to have success soon? Not get stressed,stay healthy, and spawn successfully, etc...

The tank is 10 gals, barebottom. Ph is from 6.8 to 7. Theres a ton of moss and hornwort. I have 3 possible caves for them to choose from. Just feed normal flakes and occasionally a few shrimp pellets. (They love those)
What more can I do? I believe they were fairly young when I got them. Theyve double in size since I got them. Never been too aggressive towards one another .

love to hear breeding experiences!
Thankyou in advance

 

[Mike Wise]

Add sand to the bottom. They are geophagines and sand sifting seems to help behaviorwise. Add some dither fish; this makes the apistos more at ease. 1 or 2 pencilfish are good for this. Add live (or at least frozen) food to their diet. Fish on a diet of mostly dry foods usually have white or gray eggs so the color doesn't indicate that they were infertile. Most breeders find that live food lead to more success. BTW, what do you plan to feed the fry?? Here again live foods lead to more surviving fry. Make frequent water changes to keep water quality high. In a small tank keep an eye out for aggression. Now, having said this, I want you to know that many apistos have been reproduced in tanks just like yours is now. You'll just be more successful with happy fish.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
What Mike said, and

They looked a bit white from what i could tell with a flashlight.

Don't peek at the eggs.

If you can see into the cave fairly easily it might be better to have a smaller opening. The male doesn't have to physically enter the cave, and the female will slip through really small gaps. This is another reason for having sand, it allows the female to close the cave entrance if she wishes.

I've used clay pots & saucers and 1/2 coconuts with small notch entrances, and they have worked really well

cheers Darrel

 

[dwarflover]

Thankyou for the advice. I've never had ditherfish because I feared theyd be a threat to the fry. Will they not be a threat? What is a good subsitute for pencil fish if I can't find them? What kinds of live food? I have brine shrimp eggs if I can feed adults older brine shrimp. I feed fry a mixture of powders, decap brine shrimp, and i would feed baby brine shrimp if I knew how to...if someone could explain to me that. I do water changes once a week, more than that?
Caves wise, I have coconut shells, pots, and a broken saucer for a pot. they chose to use the saucer.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Will they not be a threat? What is a good subsitute for pencil fish if I can't find them?

You have to choose the right fish. Pencil Fish are good because they have little mouths and are surface orientated, even then both Golden N. beckfordi <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/search/nannostomus+beckfordi> & Dwarf N. marginatus <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/nannostomus-marginatus/> will go after fry if they get the chance. The Hockey-stick Pencil N. eques <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/search/nannostomus+eques> is ideal.

Other fish that work are Marbled Hatchets <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/carnegiella-strigata/> and the one I'd recommend as cheap, easy to find and less challenging to keep, the Black Neon Tetra <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/hyphessobrycon-herbertaxelrodi/> these really colour up well in soft water.

If you don't mind about them being S. American, Threadfin Rainbow, Rocket Killi or Norman's Lamp-eye are also fine as dithers.

What kinds of live food?

BBS are good. Details for hatching them are here: <http://www.fishlice.f9.co.uk/house/Brine Shrimps/Brine Shrimps.htm> & <http://www.ta-aquaculture.co.uk/BS_Troubleshooter.htm>. The easiest fry food to culture are Banana/Walter or Micro worms <http://www.worm-cultures.com/bananaworminformation.htm>. Banana worms are the smallest and most prolific, but any will do, because they wriggle and elicit the feeding response, if you feed them with de-capsulated BS, the fry are more likely to eat them as well.

When the fry are a bit bigger you can add in Grindal worms and Daphnia, culture details in this post. <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/live-food-for-adult-apistos.13290/>.

If you are in the UK? PM me your address and I'll send you some cultures.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

Some other good dithers in a breeding tank are small rasboras like R. dorsocellata (green-eye), espei, maculata, borapetensis, and others. I find the Rasboras tend to be less interested in eating cichlid fry than most tetras are. For conditioning breeders (getting good nutrient-rich egg yolk) i think live mosquito larvae are probably the #1 best food, maybe even better than blackworms. You can "gut-load" the skeeters on protein-rich fish food for a day before feeding them to the breeders.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

i think live mosquito larvae are probably the #1 best food

I ranch these as well in the summer, and they are good food for a lot of fish. One problem in the UK is that they are a seasonal food source, and for whatever reason this has been a poor year for mosquito larvae for me.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

You can find mosquito larvae almost year-round here in the Carolinas. Using mosquitoes as fish food helps me to feel thankful for them, which is hard to do otherwise. I've found no such emotional connection yet to create thankfulness for ticks and chiggers. For those who have never picked blackberries in summer in the southeast USA, chiggers are skin-eating mites that leave an agonizing itchy rash for weeks ... and if you're in a place with chiggers, there's probably poison ivy too.

 

[dwarflover]

Gerald- Don't I know it. We have about 9 acers of land, all feilds. Theres plenty of poisen ivy,wild blackberries, chiggers,spiders,mosquitos, you name it. I know where theres a bucket outside that has some mosquito larvae, so I will go net some up today and feed.

Thankyou to everyone! I will take a trip to my lfs maybe tomorrow and get some frozen/live food and dither fish.
Is there anything I can imporove with the water quality? I know some people use those indian almond leaves....but I really don't know anything about those.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I know some people use those indian almond leaves....but I really don't know anything about those.

They are really useful. Have a look at this article
<http://www.seriouslyfish.com/all-the-leaves-are-brown/>.

I've found no such emotional connection yet to create thankfulness for ticks and chiggers

Where lucky in the UK, we don't have much in the way of toxic plant life, or Malaria or West Nile Disease, but we have a Deer Tick/Lymes disease problem here in the SW, and at this time of year we get "Harvest Mites", which itch incredibly.

cheers Darrel

 

[Mike Wise]

Is there anything I can imporove with the water quality?

Water quality is how unpolluted with organics the water is: NH3/NH4+, NO2, NO3. You want these as close to 0 as possible. Frequent water changes, careful feeding, and low bio-loads will keep the quality high.

Water values has to do with pH & hardness values (electrical conductivity, GH & KH). Since you only gave the pH, it's not possible to recommend improvements.

 

[dwarflover]

My GH and KH barely register when I test for them. They are very low.

-fed them mosquito larvae. they loved it.

 

[gerald]

White oak, red/spanish oak, post oak, southern magnolia, red maple, sweetgum, etc should be common near you and provide pretty much the same benefits as Indian almond. Your water is probably great for Apistos - just add some organic matter (dead leaves) and watch out that the pH doesn't drop TOO far (below 4.5) which can happen fast with soft water.

Mike - At least in the eastern US, state & fed agencies use the term "water quality" to include all those "values" too -- not just pollutants.

 

[Mike Wise]

Mike - At least in the eastern US, state & fed agencies use the term "water quality" to include all those "values" too -- not just pollutants.

That may be so, but it rather poor use in my opinion. Question - can the same 'quality' be both good and bad? What 'quality' does water have with a pH 5.5 and 35 µS/cm? If it's for a blackwater species, then it's good, but if it's for a rift lake species, then it's bad. 'Values' are just measured values.

 

[gerald]

Yup - "Water Quality" depends on the use. For public drinking water, 3 mg/L free chlorine is good quality, but for a wastewater discharge in a river, 3 mg/L would be severely polluted - the discharge permit limit for chlorine is usually around 0.02 mg/L. But I see your point about the potential for confusion in the terms, and "values" is probably a better word. I've been working with federal and state agency definitions for so long, I've just gotten used to them. To these people, water "values" are a measure of importance for different uses: crop irrigation, landscape irrigation, food processing, car washing, drinking, toilets, power generation, gravel mining, industry, etc.

The aquarium hobby is also responsible for many incorrect and/or misleading water chemistry terms, such as:
"alkaline" when referring to high pH;
carbonate "hardness" when referring to alkalinity;
"general hardness," "temporary hardness", and "total hardness" ( i still dont know what total hardness is supposed to mean)

Dwarflover: sincere apologies for me & Mike running off on this tangent.

That may be so, but it rather poor use in my opinion. Question - can the same 'quality' be both good and bad? What 'quality' does water have with a pH 5.5 and 35 µS/cm? If it's for a blackwater species, then it's good, but if it's for a rift lake species, then it's bad. 'Values' are just measured values.

 

[wethumbs]

3ppm of free chlorine is abit high for me. My tap is around 1ppm but obviously there are fluctuation from one city to another. I don't recall being a federal guideline for chlorine level in drinking water as most reports do not contain such information.

 

[wethumbs]

Just measure my tap water for chlorine.....is 0.85ppm which is inline with the city's monitoring readouts.

 

[Tattooedfool83]

Awesome thread. Tons of info, thanks guys!