Good age for starting breeding?

[Apisto ranch]

I'm new to te breeding of Apisto's and have gone head frist into breeding them for resell to my local fish store. I have over 20pairs of all differnt spices and M looking for some advise on breeding them. I've heard alot about the alka. kh of the water having to be low to almost 0 before breeding starts. Is this ture? If so how does one get it down mine stays right at 300ppm.

At what age do they start breeding ? I know I'm new to the Apisto game but have keep them before. So I'm not going into this without any knowlege of them so please don't say you should have thought before you jumped. I maded a post on another site and all I got was people putting me down for getting so many and not having room for them and not knowing anything about them. Will I know about them some. I'm not a rocket scinetis on them but know some and have been reading anything I can get my hands and eyes on on them. Also I thank that with all my tanks there is eongh room for all I have plues a couple more. As they only need the space of a 10gal tank for each pair. Maybe alittle more but still I have over 450gals in tank space for all.

So any help on the how to's and the water alka/kh ppm will be greafully thankful and if alka has to be low an help on how to get it down will also be greatfully thank ful.

Thanks before hand on all repiles.
p.s. Now in all the reading I've done on the breed it wasn't til I got to this site that I read anything about the alkal. of the water having to be at 0 to breed. Most of all I read says they well breed in just about any water prims. As long as there is hiding places and lots of plants. Is that ture?


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[apistobob]

Ranch,

To answer all of your questions I would need to write a book. Fortunately, there are already excellent books that will answer most of your questions. I recommend that you purchase the Mergus Cichlid Atlas Vol. I by Uwe Romer. This book contains the best information about keeping and breeding apistos. It has about 1,300 pages and is very good. Some of the species IDs are questionable but (in my opinion) there is no better book on husbandry.

You can find the book in many places including Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3882440562/montanaexotic-20

It seems to me that you are being quite ambitious with the number of species and available tank space. You will need to have plenty of tanks for growing out your fish if you want to sell them. Pet stores want grown and colorful adults not juveniles.

For now I would recommend that you work on keeping your fish healthy, learning all you can about them and dealing with spawning fish as they pair up and begin to breed.

Bob

 

[Apisto ranch]

I have 7-12gal special ordered tanks set up in a back room just for the fry they have fry from high fin black molloys and blue moscow guppys and dwarf frogs in them now so the bateara levels well get set in them and I will keep fry and others in the tanks til I get fry from the Apisto's. Trust me I have thought this throw and haven't jump into to this blind.

I've read and looked up alot of info but havn't heard about the alka/kh of the water in any of the reading I've done like I said this site is the frist I've seen of the alka /kh needing to be at 0 before breeding the fish. I'm just needing to know if it's ture or not so I can start working on what I need to do to get it down to that level do to my kh being at 300ppm right now and ever time I do a w/c.

There is more I could learn don't get me wrong. There is always something we could all learn. I just don't want people to run me down for wanting to breed them and having to many and thanking that I'm not thanking this throw good.I'm thanking and learning as I go. But thats the whole point of sites like this is to learn what we r doing wrong and fix it.

I've read a couple of articals from this Romar and got some good info from them. I'll look into this book as well and thank you

 

[fishgeek]

low kH is more important for certain species
some will not be able to breed in hard water full stop others will do ok

cacatoides are one of the species that can take harder water
certain black water species(you will find this on the main site to some degree, or all in the book that has been suggested) need basically no carbonate hardness and very acidic waters

if you are serious about breeding and raising significant numbers of fry from these species you will need to invest in a r/o unit with water as hard as yours

andrew
ps the search function will give lots of detail on carbonates and how they inhibit fertilisation if you want specific's
and the main site is linked in the upper rt corner of the forum pages, go to the galleries for info about lots of differnet fish, some is as yet incomplete

or just search the species you hvae

 

[Z Man]

I have a site up but haven't done anything to it in a few years but you may be interested. I have quite a few breeding articles there. http://members.aol.com/WnyZman/ You can e-mail me after you have read it over.

 

[apistobob]

Ranch,

The reason I reccommend the Romer book is that there is no single answer to your questions about hardness. This will vary with each species. Apistos are found in whitewater, clearwater and black water. Each of these water types have different parameters that you would ideally match for the fish from those waters. There is no blanket answer that will cover every apisto.

However, haveing made that statement, most apistos require fairly soft to very soft water. However, some will be very successful in moderately hard water while others will require almost totally pure water. Similarly, some will need very low pH while others don't. You need to look at an individual species basis. I do agree that if you want to commercially produce apistos you will probably find yourself needing a RO unit.

I recommend you either do searches about each of the species you own or get a good book that covers them all. There is a wealth of information available on the web, through books and through forums like this. However, you will probably get the best response from forums if you ask detailed specific questions as opposed to wide open ones.

Bob

 

[Apisto ranch]

Thanks I know I should have gone about it alot differnt. I just seen on here where the alka/kh had to be at 0 and I knew that mine was so high at 300 that there had to be a way to drop it some or all the way. I wanted to get it right so I'd be able to breed them. here's my list of the types I got.
bittaeniata x 1p
borlli x 2p
trifasciata x 2p
Gold cockato x1p
3/4 Gold females x 2
Pandro x 2p
cacatuoides orange flash x 3p
cockato full red x 2p
cockato double red x 2p
Agassizi red tail x 3p
Nijsseni x 2p

now I'll look at the gallery to see what i come up with on the water alka/kh. And thank you all if I have any more question on this I'll be sure and look ya'll up plus I'' look at the sites suggested.

 

[Z Man]

The only one's I see that you may have a water problem are Pandoro & Nijsseni. I have bred all the others in a 7.5pH and 175ppm TDS.

 

[Mike Wise]

Just keep all the A. cacatuoides color morps separate. They will breed with each other & you will get mixed color morphs.

BTW in his book Koslowski writes that he has successfully reproduced virtually every species of apisto with his moderately hard water - 400 µS/cm. He modified the pH with organic humic acids. He also wrote that production was low on blackwater species when compared with using soft water. Koslowski is an experienced breeder & knows what he is doing. Others have had very different results.

 

[Apisto ranch]

I have just wittnessed my cockato double reds breeding last night under the moon lighting on the tank so maybe with alittle luck and a lot of hard work I'll get where I'm wanting to be. Z-man your page that you gave me the link to is going to be very helpful and thank you.

I've seen alot of playing around and females turning yellow isn't that part of the breeding stage as I've read about it that females will turn a yellowish color for breeding.

 

[mooman]

sounds like you're living the dream man. Good luck. The only problem i see is space. you should be able to maintain most of the fish in the space you have, but i would suggest setting up dedicated tanks for breeding pairs. 10gs will work, if you have all those big tanks to put males in after they've done thier part. (probably already know this, but it is not uncommon for a female that is gaurding fry to kill the male in smaller tanks).

 

[Apisto ranch]

I've got 3 10gal tanks set up with molly and blue moscow guppys already in them to get the batria base in them. Once they get to big for the tanks or I sell them off. I'm going to try and move some of my baby kribs into the tanks. and not sell them just keep the kribs for my own use. like keeping batria base going and breeding.