Feeding Apistos

[Fred]

I have been keeping fish for several years. I generally focus on planted tanks (CO2 etc), and have been reading about Apistos for quite a while. I finally got a pair of Agassiziis 4 days ago. Currently I have them by themselves in a 10 gal heavily planted with a couple rock caves and a clay pot. They seem to be doing very well. They now swim around the tank about 1/2 the time and hide about half the time.

I am not an expert in spawing behavior, but the male seems to be very interested in her. He follows her around etc. She may be a little young. She is 1 1/2" long and he is 2 1/4" long.

My question is about food. They won't eat flakes (not too surprising from what I have read). I have feed them frozen bloodworms which they were quick to devour. Since then, the get interested anytime I go to the tank.

In the past, I have always fed with flakes (charicins etc). What do you recommend I feed these Apistos? Do I need to vary their diet. I have read that frozen food is a higher risk of diesese (especially Tubiflex). Do you all agree? When feeding with frozen food, do I still feed every day?

Thanks

 

[Marc]

Hi Fred,

we got the best results with feeding exclusively top quality frozen food like cyclops, daphnia, black and white moskito larvae, artemia. There are large differences in the quality. It is a often asked question in the german-language forums "What about bloodworms" and the main answer is "Neverever try to feed apistos with bloodworm, they are not able to handle this food and stay healthy". If it is possible, try to feed them with live-food. We are out once a week to catch fresh food for our apistos.

Greetings
Marc (sorry, my "foreign language" moduls are still in sleep-moden :redface: )

 

[Liquid]

Mine are on tetra bits

 

[fishgeek]

What about bloodworms" and the main answer is "Neverever try to feed apistos with bloodworm, they are not able to handle this food and stay healthy".

i disagree
i feed blood worms to my fish mixed with a variety of other things
that is if you are meaning larvae of the mosquito whan you say bloodworm
if you are talking of another oligochaete then i am unaware of this food

andrew

 

[tleehm]

Problem with bloodworm diet????

It is a often asked question in the german-language forums "What about bloodworms" and the main answer is "Neverever try to feed apistos with bloodworm, they are not able to handle this food and stay healthy".

Hi,

Recently I've aquired two pairs of trifasciata "Macliensis", initially they settled into a display tank with other fish without any problem. However when I relocate them into a species tank (using tank water from where they've settled), I've lost 2 of them over the last 4 days. My suspicion is the bloodworm diet, but I'm not certain.

In the other tank, there are plenty of corydora and other apistogramma to compete for food. Since they are new fish, there's usually hardly any worm left for them to eat. However once relocated, they no longer need to compete with others for bloodworm. So they'll eat their share of bloodworm.

With the dead fish, there's no visible symptom of external infection nor bloat. The fish was happy and well in the morning and dead by the time I'm back in the evening.

If bloodworm is bad for apistogramma, what sort of problem will it cause? Can it be fatal?? Is it only bad for particular species??

So far I've fed bloodworm with veijita, macmaster, iniridae, bitaeniata, borelli, padurini, nijsseni, baenschi over the years without any problem. This is the first time I've kept trifasciata and their sudden death is a total mistery.

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Thomas.

 

[harnsheng]

i dun think bloodwrom cause problem..i dun experience any problem b4. i fed my apisto with tubifex most of the time and that dun have any problems at all too...they grow well and breed well!!

 

[tjudy]

I think that the key is variety. If a fish is fed a diet of only one thing, then problems are more likely to occur. I feed a wide viariety of frozen foods, including bloodworm, but the fish rarely get any one thing more than once or twice a week. The only thing they get every day is baby brine (artemia), but only because I hatch it every day and putting a dropper's worth in each tank is easy.

The frozen I feed includes: white mosquito, daphnia, blood worm, chopped mysis, cyclops

The live I feed includes: blackworm (very little, but increasing soon), white worm, grindal worm, micro worm (fry), bbs, moina (great apisto food), daphnia, flour beetle larvae

 

[sherry]

I've read this site pretty obsessively and the general consensus is that variety is indeed the key.

a diet too high in bloodworms is also too high in protein and can lead the apistos to become constipated. They needed vegtables too.. so a mix of live or frozen foods should also be supplemented with high quality prepared foods (flake or pellets) and even some vegtables like peas... I nuke frozen peas for about 15 seconds, then squeeze the pea part from the skin part and toss the skin.

most of the fish in my tank love them.

 

[aspen]

you need to watch you don't over feed bloodworms. i've seen dwarfs die from this.

>>'...if you are meaning larvae of the mosquito whan you say bloodworm...'

bloodworms are midge larvae, at least on this side of the ocean.

http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Bloodworm.htm

rick

 

[tjnelson44]

I have read that the exoskeleton of bloodworms can cause problems as it can be difficult for the fish to pass. I have never had this problem with my fish though, I feed blood worms as the main food to my apistos. I do try to mix things up and feed bbs, grindal worms, frozen brine shrimp, chopped earth worms, and daphnia. But for one reason or another, there have been times when my fish were fed bloodworms exclusively. They not only seemed fine, they seemed to thrive on it. I even have fed it to apistos that were only around half an inch long with no ill effects. I also should mention that the only brand of blood worms that i use are the Hikari brand since they undergo a sterilization process.

Maybe some of the problems people have had with blood worms can stem from the handling of the frozen food. If it has been improperly handled then allowed to defrost then refrozen, this could compromise the quality of the food to some degree. It would be hard to know if the food has been allowed to thaw at some point prior to purchasing it. The only thing that i can think of is to buy frozen food from a reputable dealer and avoid packages that are awkardly shaped (bent or lumped instead of flat and smooth), indicating that they were defrosted then refrozen.
Trevor

 

[Cowboy]

I have had no problem with bloodworms. I feed these to my apistos about 1-2 times a week. I additionally use tubifex, live black worms, daphnia and mysis. Plus, I use frozen artima with spirulina. I am not sure they need the spirulina, but I think it may help with digestion.

I mainly use the blackworms a week or so before breeding.

 

[Fred]

Thanks for all the good info! Since my original post, I also read Neil Illiedoll’s article on this site. Sounds like the important thing is to vary the food. I will use frozen food for now, but plan to culture some worms etc as well.

Can anyone recommend a source (I am in the US) to begin the culture?

Do you all think once a day enough to feed this type of food?

 

[tleehm]

Thanks for all the good info! Since my original post, I also read Neil Illiedoll’s article on this site. Sounds like the important thing is to vary the food. I will use frozen food for now, but plan to culture some worms etc as well.

Can anyone recommend a source (I am in the US) to begin the culture?

Do you all think once a day enough to feed this type of food?

Hi Fred,

Can you provide a hyperlink to the article? Would like a read as well but don't really have time to dig around for it.:tongue:

Thanks,
Thomas.

 

[Fred]

Link is

http://www.apistogramma.com/cms/Articles/Dwarf_Cichlid_Husbandry/Dwarf_Cichlid_Nutrition/

 

[Marc]

Hi,

exoskeleton of bloodworms can cause problems as it can be difficult for the fish to pass.

in the german dwarf cichlid forum, a lot of experienced apistobreeders say, that that are a lot of barbs at the exoskeleton of bloodworm. And these barbs cause problems when they should pass the stomach or intestine especially of apistogramma. And because of the expererience of some of theses people with up to 20 or more years in breeding Apistogramma, for me it sounds like a good idea to feed my apistos with a diversified range of frozen and life food without bloodworm. Maybe i'am wrong, but for me it feels to risky.

Marc

 

[LindaMC]

I feed my pair of apisto aggazzis frozen brine shimp, that's all they seem to like. They're in my 29 gallon planted tank along with rams, tetras, ottos and a SAe. I try to supplement and feed them flakes or crips too, but the apistos won't eat them, they wait around for my to feed tham brine shrimp. I would like to find something else they would like to give them variation, because in my opinion, that's key in any diet.

 

[Zapisto]

Thanks for all the good info! Since my original post, I also read Neil Illiedoll’s article on this site. Sounds like the important thing is to vary the food. I will use frozen food for now, but plan to culture some worms etc as well.

Can anyone recommend a source (I am in the US) to begin the culture?

Do you all think once a day enough to feed this type of food?

personnally i feed my apisto and other dwarf once to twice a day.
they get usually BBS every days and other sort of food once a week.

the variety is the master key here, the quality is not far behind

I am in canada so cannot recommend any us source.

 

[fishgeek]

the bug farm does most live food starter cultures


andrew

 

[Fred]

Thanks Andrew. I just checked them out.

 

[el'TJ]

the bug farm does most live food starter cultures


andrew

I am interested in this...do you have a similar link or info for the UK? I live in Streatham, what part of London are you from Andrew?