blackwater tank cycling?

[rasmusW]

Thanks for the update. How many tanks do you have now? -it feels like new ones are added every month

Ps. I would love to get my hands on some morse codes.. they are on my list for sure.

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[anewbie]

I'm not sure around 18-20; but only 8 or 9 are dedicated to apistogramm species. I've reached my limit in space and time. I was able to find more frys for the a. sp ipiranga - tehy were all hugging the sponge filter but immediately went after the bbs when added (my guess is around 12-15). This species is kind of weird they seem to have a lot of attribute of pair forming in that the male appears to only bond with a single female but of course once she broods she wants nothing to do with him but he wont' allow other females near him. They are also large fish - i think @miguelgr7 has his in a 29 or 20 but given their sudden turn to violence towards other fishes i'm happy they are in a larger aquarium. The one head-ache is that hte tank is so dark it obscures their beauty. Given they are fairly people friendly i might try to lighten things a little. I do have a 2nd or maybe a 3rd female (if it didn't die) in the aquarium but it hides in a huge clump of anubia and will only stick her nose out - once or twice it will come out and try to temp the male but he wants nothing to do with her.

I knew she had brooded because the two separated and he refused to go near her; there were other typical behavior in that she kept darting in and out and such but the male behavior was more odd - i never observed violence or other signaling as i do with other species he just wouldn't go near her and actually retreated quite far to an area he normally doesn't occupy (the tank is 16x48); this is definitely a species i doubt you could keep two pairs in less than 72 x 24; the weird thing is when i first got them the two males hung out together and i never saw any violence between them but then one day one was dead (i suppose it could have died on its own but i suspect otherwise); normally when there is such violence they separate and in this aquarium there was room for such. Anyway i would love to know more about their wild habitat and behavior in the wild.

The winkelfleck and a. sp blutkehl are very different esp with the a. sp blutkehl there seem no violence towards the fry even older frys seem to ignore them and some near maturity i still see no violence. I have around 20 frys in the 65 with the parents - i tried to remove a bunch when i upgraded the tank but a lot hid in the substrate - gonna be a real problem at some point. The a. wolli are very different i find violence among older and younger fry and adults and fry - the fry are definitely made to feel unwelcomed at a young age. Maybe it is just the specific ones i have.
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Other than price i'm definitely pleased with the morse code tetra; it is a toss up between them and the n. marilynae in terms of preference though the lower price of the n. marilynae give them an edge. I definitely prefer these smaller schoolers to the larger nannostomus (which i find even in the 65 to be too large). I suppose in a 200 or 400 they would do fine. Also i feel the smaller scholers are less bio-load though i should probably try to take some careful measurements. That is i think the larger fishes which might be 2x in size is 4x bioload or something like that. Also both the mentioned n and tetra seem to form large clumps as oppose to more individual behavior i see with the larger nannostomus. I would call it schooling but they don't normally show a lot of motion unless disturbed.

 

[anewbie]

Just an updated picture - always amaze me how these folks use leaves. Unfortunately when i got closer to take a better picture he was spooked:

One of the young norbert male no colouring yet:

different aquarium - one of the dm:

I think i have 5 male and 1 female dm the males are all around 3 inches but so far are not showing any aggression (they are in a 180); kind of overfed since they eat the discus left over food and the discus are not very neat eaters (i still hand feed them black worm cubes).

 

[Mike Wise]

Just an updated picture - always amaze me how these folks use leaves.

Leaf litter is their natural environment in the wild. When we collected apistos we spent a lot of time removing leaf litter in order to see what fish we actually collected

I think i have 5 male and 1 female dm the males are all around 3 inches but so far are not showing any aggression (they are in a 180)

Obviously tank size matters. Behavior changes in smaller tanks.

 

[anewbie]

Was trying to get a good picture of the dominant male norbertii during water change but he was too busy patrolling (he's not shy at all but he moves a lot); so i took these two instead:

This is a e. parviflorus tropicall; the only real thing to note about it is that conversion from emersed to submersed went really fast and growth is quite good (i've had it for approx 2 months and it is zipping along) and this is the dominant female (i have 3 m and 3 f in 100):

I actually think the two have been courting as he won't chase her away unlike the other females. To avoid conflict i feed on both sides of the aquarium to reduce temptation to push fishes into each other territories (the water portion is 48in x 30in); this species is quite typical with lots of chasing. Though the range seems to be approx 20ish inches before the chaser gives up. I would not be shocked if at some point there is a death but on the other hand 6 weeks and things seem fairly stable.

to my eye the male has very little colour so far though the tannins mask a bit.

 

[anewbie]

Actually using a flashlight on the large male he looks a lot like the first male on tom's website which has almost no red but the blue/yellow is filling in nicely.