Discussion- wild vs mass prouced Czech Rep Apistos

[Apistomaster]

I believe the majority of the so-called German Apistogramma are actually raised by Czech breeders. It appears to be a cottage industry involving many small breeders who sell to a major exporter.

I have been keeping Apistos long enough to see them go from wild caught assorted Apistogramma costing as little as $0.20 each in 100 lots and retailing for $1.00 each to the now common Czech Apistogramma which retail for $20 to $50 a pair.
This has made the variety of Apistogramma species and various color morphs add up to well over 100 types.
The old days of assorted Apistogramma usually broke down to a lot of A. bitaeniata, fewer A. agassizi which were mainly the natural blue morph. From there, the species were much harder to identify. Books of that period were hopelessly filled with errata. The other SA dwarf that was extremely common was Nannacara anomala. The odds and ends could be A. pertensis, A. steindachneri, A. borelli and an occasional A. gibbiceps.

Both wild caught imports and the mass produced domestic stock have their problems. Wild fish were not expensive nor did they receive special care like they do now that they are highly valued. So, for me, the main problem as a breeder would be getting them back into good condition. Usually, no sooner than they were healthy again a spawning was almost a given. Depending upon the age of the fish and how much recovery was necessary seemed to be the main determinants of longivity. I found that healthy young wilds usually enjoyed a long breeding life.

While I welcome the availability we now enjoy I have found some rather consistent problems with the bred fish. I am wondering if others have noticed any of the problems I have.
One is that a surprising large number of the TR fish come in as rather large breeder sized fish. These often seem to only have a spawn or two left.

Secondly, these TR fish seem very prone to sudden deaths. Usually they look and act pretty normal but that can quickly go to a rapidly developing bloat that is almost always followed by death within a day or two.
It just seems that now that we can get anything we want, we may not have many chances to breed them. It is why I usually artificially hatch the first spawn. I may have a unique experience with these TR fish problems but I suspect I am not the only one who has similar observations. Now we pay a lot for often ephemeral fish.
I miss the wild fish but their increased popularity has made the days of cheap assorted wild Apistogramma species a thing of the past.

 

[bigbird]

Morning Master,

I agree with you. The biggest difficulty in the stock that we all receive at the LFS, it the verification from their origin. We have to rely on what they say, even thought they are imports. All these new morfs of colours, make it extremely difficult to even know where and what variety were used to achieve these colours. We have now available morfs like double body red, superior body etc etc etc. The Apisto is wild form are stunning creatures, yet in the aquarium trade for the public, the more colour the better it sells. Thus we mere mortals loose the basic origin , style and colour of the Apisto. When I lived in Campinas, near Sao Palu for 6 years, we had basic Apistos with some sparkle. I admire you thought on getting strains back to the natural form and applaud this. Well done.
In my view, any nreeder of the Apisto, should or must provide details of which strains were used and if wild place of origin. Only then can we get back to natures basic beauty.
cheers jan-kurt :biggrin:

 

[Bev N]

I have both wild and Czech bred apistos and like both for their unique qualities. While some of the wild species may not be as boldly colored as the tank raised specimens they are no less interesting and beautiful to watch.

It seems to me that the wild fish in general are much more hardy, grow faster than tank raised fish and are very easy to acclimate. That is, of course, with the exception of altums and some other delicate species. I have also had the sudden unexplained death occur in tank raised apistos. The few wild apistos I lost were to suicide! Darn skydivers!

I also have rams and just got a few very nice wild ones to cross with my domestic ones. These are just about as brightly colored as my german strain rams and I'm betting a lot hardier which is my reason for crossing back to them.

As far as breeding tank raised I believe in general are easier to get to spawn. I have had tank raised spawn in less than two weeks while the wilds took I believe about 5 months. Now I'm told that iniridae are difficult to get to spawn so perhaps that is why it took that long. This is the third time they spawned but the first time they haven't eaten the eggs and I'm seeing fry for the first time.

Now keep in mind these are just my limited experiences and I'm in no way an expert on anything!

Bev

 

[chris1932]

I am going to chime in here. I keep both wild and domestic Apistos, as well as discus, angles and geophagus. My prefrence is to keep wilds when they are available. When I do purchase wilds I do so in big groups so that I can pick the best fish of the group to work with. This cuts the time it is going to take to produce attractive offspring.

I will go out on a limb and say that one of the most attractive apistos I have is a wild tefe, It has taken me awhile to get to the point I am at now and say I think the wild fish are much stronger and without some of the genetic defects I frequently see in eastern european fish. I have had the sudden death of apistos, and it is more often domestic than wilds.

Genetic defects of some of the fish I see from CZ are disturbing, crossed venterals, odd mouths, bent spine lines, uneven eye position when viewed from the front. It surprises me that they ship them like that. And I see the same thing in domestic angels.

As far as breeding goes I do not see a lot of difference. If you make them happy they will breed.

 

[tjudy]

The cottage industry you describe is pretty accurate, but I think that it is a mistake to lump all Czech breeders into a single group. Just as anywhere else, some breeders are better than others. I have gotten some very good fish from eastern Europe, and some very bad fish from eastern Europe... just like any wholesaler I have bought from in the USA.

As for wild vs. tank raised... with the notable exception of Apisto. cacatuoides, I have always found wild apistos to be more prolific than tank bred.

 

[jose_vogel]

Unfortunatelly (or not?) I have to deal just with wildcaughts; but the price is not as Apistomaster wrote.

One month ago, I have to pay 200 american dollars for a bag of ten Apistos (0.5 inch) labelled "Marine"; 150 american dollars for a bag of ten Apistos (again 0.5 inch) labelled "Huallaga" and one friend of mine pay 250 american dollars for a bag of twelve swollen Apistos labelled "Napoensis".

The "Marine" bag turned to be 8 A. cruzi (first time in Argentina!!!) and 2 A. agassizzi (I´m still wondering how anybody could mixed them).

The "Huallaga" bag turned to be 7 A. cf. eunotus (I still don´t know if some of them are "Shahuaya" and some "orange tail") and 3 A. sp. "Papagei" (first time in Argentina!!!).

An about the "Napoensis", we (my friend and I) thought they´re some population of A. bitaeniata; but in 2 days they were all dead.

We bought directly from the importer and -for us- all the Apistos are very expensive (except for borelli, trifasciata and commbrae; they are sold at 1 american dollar). Take into account that a good wildcaught Heckel Discus in good shape and with a diameter of 3 or 4 inches are sold at 25 american dollars.

Besides that, very often the fishes arrives at a very bad condition (The bags I told were at PH 7.8 and 950 ms. of conductivity, very dark and very thin). But, if the fish can survive 1 week from the arrival, they´ll get very good colours, fins and shape.

My opinions on breeding wildcaughts is that perhaps it´s more difficult or challenging but there is the funny thing (not always funny, I´m dealing with 7 wildcaught M. ramirezzi for 5 months with RODI water and still can´t breed them).

Unfortunatelly, the worst thing is that there are no more than 14 species that arrives to our country (no matter the price you want to pay).

Thanks for "hearing" me.

 

[fishme.]

Unfortunatelly, the worst thing is that there are no more than 14 species that arrives to our country (no matter the price you want to pay).

that is sad and a bit hironic.you are so close to their biotope.

i wish that in greece we will see 14 species of apistogramma.a year with 5-6 species is a lucky year:frown: :frown: :frown:

i prefer wild caught fish.i never buy fish that haven't natural colour or shape.
but in the other hand the over fishing of a species can harm the wild population like what happened with the Danio margaritatus http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1538
which became almost extinct in the wild because of the overfishing just to introduce them in the hobby.

 

[tjudy]

over fishing of a species can harm the wild population like what happened with the Danio margaritatus

Apparently, those reports were grossly exagerated. Mike Hellweg corresponded with the discoverers of the fish about the threat to them, and they reported that there were lots of them, the range is broad and their fecundity is high, so reproduction is very fast. Mike reported this in his article in TFH on the species that came out last Summer, a few months after the blurb appeared in Practical Fish Keeping.

A more reliable guage as to the rarity of the fish is the number and price of imports. Rare fish that are getting rarer increase in price... but Danio margaritatus importations increased through last Fall and the price plummeted to less than $2 wholesale. They are out of season at the moment, but I suspect that they will be popular and inexpensive later this year.

 

[Inka4040]

I thought the price dropped since they were so easy to breed. Aren't they already being mass produced in Singapore?

 

[Apistomaster]

I'll try to address a couple of issues.
1. I have some friends among the Czech ornamental fish breeding community and they are, as a group, a bunch of highly skilled fish breeders as one is likely to find anywhere.
2. They can't control the lack of care their fish receive once they leave their custody and I believe the source of problems begins when the Apistogramma that are used to perfect care abruptly are introduced to a lower standard of care and exposure to diseases from other fish from around the world. From there, they still have to run the gauntlet that is the distribution chain and all fish suffer from that life experience.
I think more than a few of us have seen our own fish sold to a store in perfect condition die in the tanks of the retailer. Even quality Guppies often find this transition fatal.
3. The wholesale prices for Apistogramma species in Argentina are unusually higher than normal. I receive price lists from Peruvian, Colombian exporters and jobbers out of Miami, USA and while wild Apistogramma prices are higher than they were historically, they are very much lower than the Argentine prices and they tend to get their species more often correct than the Argentine report. Most are sold in box lots of 75 to 125 and not a few dozen.
Sounds like there are too many middlemen in your fish trade.
4.Apistogramma iniridae can be a challenge to breed. Like other black water wild caught fish tend to be. If you got fry after five months of trying, Bev, you did better than I. I failed to breed mine at all. My female preferred to turn yellow and guard wriggling black worms as if they were her fry.
5.I'll have to try this myself first to gain evidence, but I have a hypothesis that wild Rams may have better brooding instincts than the tank raised strains that are the products of a very large number of generations of artificially raised fish.

I am glad I began this thread because it has been one with a great deal of exchange of experiences and ideas. I can admit my bias is for the wild caught fish but I that does not diminish my appreciation for the development of many aquarium strains. In the end, I will buy what is available if it is a species I have been wanting. I just thought what I was experiencing with the imported tank raised fish was unusual compared to my experiences with wild fish. Apparently, this has held true for many of us.
I think the wild fish have some extra resiliency as adaptations that help them cope with seasonal environmental changes. Having said that, I don't believe many wild Apistogramma live much beyond one year in the wild before they are taken by anyone of the dozens of predators that feed on them.