Combining two Apistogramma species in one tank?

[Bones]

Great help Russ. Thanks! Truly thanks guys, you, Mike, Gerald have all been an enormous help with this. I now have a plan, fingers crossed. I am ordering a 65 gallon - 36x18x24 tank, I like tall tanks. Hopefully everything will be setup by the end of March and I will start the cycling process with a school of Bloodfins, I've found they are extremely hardy with new tank cycling. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Then after the tank is cycled and planted and filled with caves and driftwood, I will add some dither fish, hopefully Nannostomus mortenthaleri, Nannostomus rubrocaudatus and or Diptail pencilfish. The Bloodfins will be removed to my 40gallon community tank. From there the tank will continue to mature until the ACA's then hopefully I will be able to find some juvenile Apistogrammas. Wouldn't mind finding two different bags of the same type of juvenile Apistogrammas from different breeders. Two bags from different stock. Maybe even F0 or F1. Then place them all in the 65 and watch them grow. With time and through maturity if I am lucky enough to produce a mating pair they will be cordoned off to breed. Ohhh….. if wishing made it so. Not set in stone, more like written in pencil but that is the plan. What do you think?

 

[Mike Wise]

Err ... most apistos don't form "mated pairs", but it depends on the species. In most species the female chooses their mate (can be a different male each time she spawns) and males are happy to breed with any female who accept his overtures.

 

[Bones]

Mike are there any specific apistos that form mated pairs?

 

[Bones]

Are there any specific Apistogrammas that form mated pairs orrrrrrrrr if there is a large (10-20) group of Apistogrammas of the the same species in a tank and One of the females breeds and produces eggs then fry. Could the other non breeding females help with the rearing? Are there any specific apistos that might fit either of these senerios? Thanks again.

 

[Mike Wise]

No apisto forms a 'mated pair' in the sense of cichlasomine cichlids of Central America. Some form pair bonds for 1 or more breeding sessions if they are successful in raising fry. If not, then the bond commonly breaks and the fish look for a better match. Most of the nijsseni- and pertensis-group species are like this. I don't recall any apisto female species that consistently allow other females to interact with their offspring. Typically, they are highly aggressive toward other females (and males). Roemer wrote that several males of A. geisleri (Smaragd) will be allowed to defend a female's breeding perimeter if there are a large number of fry predator in the area. Personally, if you're looking for for a group type of breeding behavior you won't find it among apistos.

 

[Bones]

Thanks Mike. I am not looking for anything in particular as far as breeding patterns. You had suggested that most apistos didn't form "mated pairs" which I didn't know. I believe that breeding two different stocks of let's say Apistogramma bitaeniata will strengthen the species as opposed to one group of offspring interbreeding amongst themselves. In nature it is necessary for all species to breed outside there own pack. It is not only necessary but imperative in some cases. It helps to breed out disease and impairments as well as strengthen and prolong the existence of the species. Now I'm planning on doing this on a small scale at my home with 10-20 fish of the same species, not populating a southern river in Peru. Yet it is still important to create good, pure bred Apistogramma bitaeniata. It's not that I'm a purist because crazy things do happen in nature but in my tank I'd like to keep the Apistogramma bitaeniata or which ever species I choose, as Apistogramma bitaeniata. So I guess maybe I am a bit of a purest. Uwe Romer and Dave Soares have spoke at length of keeping huge schools of Apistogrammas in relatively small tanks and I wanted to know if breeding was taking place. And if so did multiple individuals guard the fry or was it just the mother or parents?
Thank you for taking the time to converse with me as I'm just a beginner at the practical side of raising apistos. Reading will only get you so far, it's the experience of masters like you that have tried and succeeded and tried and failed that leads to a true understanding of Dwarf Cichlids. Thanks.

 

[gerald]

If I'm remembering correctly, I think Paul Loiselle said in one of his talks that some of the Lamprologus colonies that were studied on isolated rock-piles in Lake Tanganyika appear to be a long-term continuous lineage from a single founding pair, with hardly any out-breeding. Fish are less adversely affected by in-breeding than mammals, birds, and other animals that have just a few young. Only a few good offspring need to survive for success of the colony, so they can "afford" to have a lot of genetic failures.

In nature it is necessary for all species to breed outside there own pack. It is not only necessary but imperative in some cases. It helps to breed out disease and impairments as well as strengthen and prolong the existence of the species. .

Regarding mothers & fry, I agree with Mike that Apisto females do NOT appreciate each other's "help" in child care. However, fry dont seem to care and will wander back and forth among any mother who is in fry-care mode.

 

[Mike Wise]

Line breeding in the wild is not a major problem since most specimens that are genetically defective (for survival in the biotope) are removed by predators. With changes in the biotope some of the 'defective' specimens can be better addapted to the new conditions. This is how new species commonly are formed. In the aquarium the problem is that more fry survive and many may contain genetic problems, and still allowed to survive and breed. A good breeder should be ready to cull heavily; quality over quantity. As for A. bitaeniata (and many other apistos with a wide distribution range), we might be surprised to discover that many of the populations sold under the name are genetically different. I personally try to keep pure populations and then carefully breed and cull.

Uwe uses 2 meter tanks that have many visual boundaries so he can house more fish. He isn't interested in producing offspring as in observing the behavior of the fish as they interact. If you don't mind not getting numbers of fry, and the chance of losing some fish to aggression, then crowding can work.

 

[Karin]

I was under the impression that was a "good" thing - that species using fundamentally different signals would be less likely to set off each others' "hot" buttons, and thus tend to be less interested in each other and fight less. A faulty assumption on my part Mike?

QUOTE="Mike Wise, post: 96156, member: 701"]I don't recommend mixing Neotropical and West African species mostly because communicating aggression & submission are very different.

[/QUOTE]

Sometimes submissive behavior of some species is exactly the opposite or not understood by the other species, resulting in more submissive behavior of species 1 individual but more aggressive behavior of species 2 individual (one doesn’t getting the message or just getting the opposite message) resulting in a disaster… It is very interesting to read about it in Konrad Lorenz book on birds. Just as an example...

 

[Bones]

Thanks guys! Mike when you say, and I'm paraphrasing, many populations of apistogrammas with a wide distribution range and sold under a certain name i.e. - A. bitaeniata, are genetically different are we talking misidentified/misnamed or like Darwin's finches? This is all fascinating.

Mike I just finished reading a short article you wrote in 1998 about Breeding A.bitaeniata. Very interesting. Have you found that the tank bred A. bitaeniata are maybe less skittish resulting in the polygamous male not eating the fry? I'm worried about switching on the light source and scaring either the male or female into eating their brood. You also wrote in 2000 about Apistogramma spawning difficulties. You spoke of older more mature males being better as breeders than younger more hyper males. And paired with a younger female the chances of a successful brood would be greater. How about a more seasoned female as well? Wouldn't that raise the percentage even more?

Lastly would you consider the A. bitaeniata to be one of the more skittish apistos? I am looking for a colourful, interesting and playful apistogramma that is a relatively easy to spawn and must be good parents or at least one great parent. You might be thinking, well all fish are different, but I'm talking generally in your experience, basically an apisto that might not eat it's young if the light gets turned on. The night light seems like a great idea, considering the backwater environment they come from. My pH is 6.5, Hardness - 30ppm, Temp - 25-27C or 77-80 F.

 

[Bones]

I just found Apisto sites, thanks TomC and Martin. I'm in heaven! I am going to be up all night. Starting off with some light reading. Paleogeography of South America and it's effects on the distribution and phylogeny of Apistogramma-species-groups.

 

[Mike Wise]

If you talk to Dr. Roemer, virtually every major river system has its own species. I prefer not to go that far, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Each system is more or less isolated from those farther away. These small fish don't really travel far in their lifetimes so the gene pool is more restricted than we would expect for larger species.

I always found male A. bitaeniata to be eager/aggressive when courting females. In this respect they easily intimidate females, especially younger females. As they age the male IME tend to slow down and become less eager, something the females seem to prefer. A. bitaeniata is a rather shy species, but not as shy as A. eremnopyge. Sudden movements and shadows send them scurrying into a hiding place. I've had many females lose spawns simply because of the sudden light change when the aquarium light turn on in a dark room. A small 3W night light over the tank seems to ease this considerably. As for your water values they might work, but I try to keep the pH closer to 5.5-6.0.

Your 'light reading' involved over 10 years of research on my part. Enjoy. FYI my educational background is in biostratigraphy, paleobiology, paleoecology and paleoenvironments, i.e. historical geology.

 

[Bones]

By me saying light reading, of course I was kidding. Great reading! I am in awe of the countless man hours you have spent studying cichlids, not to mention the hours in school learning these disciplines. I am grateful for the knowledge I have learned in the Cichlids Atlases, the Datz South American Dwarf Cichlid book and in this group.

If you ever happen to venture to Bermuda please let me know. We have a small club of enthusiasts called the Bermuda Fry-Angle Aquarium Society and we are sponges for knowledge. Fry angle is of course a play on words from the Bermuda Triangle legend. Every freshwater tropical fish we keep has to be imported so extreme care is taken on shipping them here. Even though we are an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean we do in fact have a local killifish in our freshwater ponds, the Bermuda Killifish, Fundulus bermudae. Luckily Killifish are euryhaline because during hurricanes some of our freshwater ponds take on saltwater.

As far as the pH I am trying to lower it but our water is generally neutral to hard, as we catch most of our water on limestone roofs. I have been using desalinated water to slowly lower it to 6.5 pH. Hopefully in the next few weeks our local fish store will be importing some peat so I can lower it even more. Shooting for 6.0 pH.

Any suggestions on some more great articles on Apistogramma?

 

[Bones]

Mike and TomC, another thing. I was thumbing through TomC's website and clicked on the Copyright section. Interestingly he is speaking of permission to use his works and photos on private websites and mentions, "But, for example, if you intend to write a new and interesting article that will promote keeping the fish of our interest under the right conditions, or promote not to put fish of the "same species" from different locations together, we might give the permission to use our work." This is exactly what I was talking about. I was unaware that mixing the same species from different locations was frowned upon. My sincerest apologises, it wasn't my intention to promote a practice that was not held in good stead. I thought it would be good for the species. My intentions were pure.