Dust off the book shelf!

[Akraziatic]

Heya everyone.

Being new to dwarf cichlids, I have been trawling through the all of the threads, old and new, learning a tonne from you all, however I feel I keep stumbling on the surface of topics and I want to go deeper.

I'm hoping you all would be kind enough to share with me the different resources you've discovered over time. What are the things that you keep referring back to, or feel should be a part of the apisto canon?

If you're going to paste a link (definitely encouraged), it'd be awesome if you could quickly note what it pertains to (Breeding, DIY, Feeding, Water Chem etc) and admins, I'll be cataloging everything as I explore which we might want to provide to newbs like myself as a sticky or something.

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to digging through your libraries.

 

[Mike Wise]

What kind of information are you looking for? My 'go to' books for collection and natural habitat information are Koslowski's Die Buntbarsche Amerikas, Band 2, Apistogramma & Co. (only in German) and Römer's Cichlid Atlas 1 & 2. For identification help I use Koslowski's book or the DATZ book. Other books have a fair number of mis-IDs. All are old now and don't discuss newly introduced species.

 

[Bart Hazes]

Römer's Cichlid Atlas 1 & 2 is almost permanently on my kitchen table for fish ID and especially habitat and aquarium maintenance info. For websites, http://apisto.sites.no/ is a treasure trove of apisto information and images.

 

[Akraziatic]

Thanks Mike and Bart. Will track some down.

Essentially, I came across buttnekkid's thread linking to a post on biofilm which was really insightful and wanted to find more gems like that as opposed to digging through Tank mate questions.

Hoping to surface the interesting things people have learnt over the years and pick up things I haven't learnt through monsters or shrimp.

 

[ButtNekkid]

Thanks Mike and Bart. Will track some down.

Essentially, I came across buttnekkid's thread linking to a post on biofilm which was really insightful and wanted to find more gems like that as opposed to digging through Tank mate questions.

Hoping to surface the interesting things people have learnt over the years and pick up things I haven't learnt through monsters or shrimp.

Hi,

Glad to be of service! This site really is the best the internets has to offer for Apistoaficionados!

 

[Bart Hazes]

One of the exciting things about apistos (and quite a few other less-common fish) is that so many things are yet to be discovered and you can be a true citizen scientist if you have the patience to observe, read, experiment and share your stories.

 

[gerald]

The most important thing I've learned is that Apistos (and softwater dwarf cichlids in general) have a poor recovery rate once they get sick, compared with most other cichlids and tropical fish. It's very important to KEEP them healthy (water, diet, temp, stress). Don't get slack on aquarium care; they're not as adaptable and forgiving as rosy barbs and rift-lake cichlids!

 

[Akraziatic]

One of the exciting things about apistos (and quite a few other less-common fish) is that so many things are yet to be discovered and you can be a true citizen scientist if you have the patience to observe, read, experiment and share your stories.

After digging through apisto.sites.no I can see you're certainly not wrong. There's so much more species variation than what's presented at the lfs. Looking forward to the journey.