Hello Apistee from Canada

[Lanny]

Hi to all Apistee,

new to the group and new to those rascal. Currently the proud owner of 2 agazssizii, a pair of abacaxis and (still sexually confusing). nijsseni.
Hope to learn more about these rascal and expand the family in the future.

Cheers,
Lanny

 

[Bart Hazes]

Welcome Lanny. You have quite an interesting collection already. Only 90+ more described species (and another 100 undescribed ones) to go
Are you looking to breed them?

 

[Bart Hazes]

By-the-way, I'm also in Canada (Edmonton). If you are in this part of the country you will find a good selection of wild apistos for sale with Curtis Jerrom in Calgary. He also ships within Canada. Oliver Lucanus from Below Water in Montreal normally also has some apistos for sale (perhaps you got your sp. Abacaxis from him?). Spencer Jack used to carry apistos but hasn't had any for the last 6 months or so and is now in the midst of a move so will be out of the running for a little while.

 

[Lanny]

By-the-way, I'm also in Canada (Edmonton). If you are in this part of the country you will find a good selection of wild apistos for sale with Curtis Jerrom in Calgary. He also ships within Canada. Oliver Lucanus from Below Water in Montreal normally also has some apistos for sale (perhaps you got your sp. Abacaxis from him?). Spencer Jack used to carry apistos but hasn't had any for the last 6 months or so and is now in the midst of a move so will be out of the running for a little while.

HI Bart ...nice to meet you. yeap I'm in Calgary and got my abacaxis pair from Curtis. I think almost all of his apisto are wild imported. Would def get more from him, when he has interesting species. Doubt our water will be soft enough for breeding. Will def try breeding if I can get a nice pair of domestics Agassizii 'Db Red' or 'Fire Red', or even find a nice female.

 

[Bart Hazes]

I have 6 sp. Abacaxis from the same batch of Curtis. They spawned once but because there was already a fry guarding A. allpahuayo in the tank that spawn failed. Just yesterday, to my great surprise, the dominant male Abacaxis displaced the female allpahuayo and started to guard her fry, chasing intruders and making the typical jerky motions to warn the fry of danger. I separated him with a net to let the birth mom back to her fry, but a little later he was back herding the fry around. Very weird but on the Apistogramma International facebook group someone replied to have seen the same with a cacatuoides male guarding the fry of a different cacatuoides pair. This morning when the light came on the proper mom was in charge of the fry again. If it happens again in the weekend I need to find a video camera to record this.

Reverse osmosis is the solution to all your hard water problems and in IMO very much worth it, especially since you will have access to many very special wild apistos via Curtis. The 50 gallon/day RO buddy costs about Cnd$100, or often a bit less on Amazon.ca and served me well until my tank volume exploded to the point that I needed a bigger unit.

Curtis just had cacatuoides triple red but am not sure if any are left. Fortunately for me he is more interested in wild caught and less common species. If all goes according to plan he will also be selling my F1 fry later this Fall, including some that should be ok to keep but probably not breed in our harder water (A. rubrolineata, norberti, sp. Melgar, allpahuayo, and baenschi).

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome!

 

[Lanny]

I think my Apis. nijsseni might be actually panduro. The color is much lighter and have a light blue sheen. The pair just laid eggs underneath the rock. and the female been guarding the eggs. No wonder they been pretty nasty the past few days. Will see if the eggs hatch with our water ...

 

[Bart Hazes]

Congrats with the fry. My panduro female was vicious when defending her fry. Only dad was allowed to get close.

Panduro normally have large black peduncle spot that extends onto the blueish tail that has a red margin, with the red flanked by translucent/black on both sides. Nijseni has small peduncle spot and just a red rim on the very edge of the yellowish tail.

 

[Lanny]

I was wondering that since my male doesn't have the typical black spot on the tail, and the blueish color is too light to be Niseni.

 

[Bart Hazes]

I was wondering that since my male doesn't have the typical black spot on the tail, and the blueish color is too light to be Niseni.

As is often the case, absence of a marking is less informative than its presence. In other words, if it has the panduro like marking it is almost certainly panduro, but if it lacks the marking it can still be panduro, they just (temporarily) don't show the marking.

 

[Lanny]

Curious ....my pair of abacaxis from Curtis has black spots/marking on them. Its typical of the species? Some of the pictures i see online has almost no black marking. I think someone mentioned these could be mold or virus... the pair is doing good so maybe it just pigment on skin ..

 

[Bart Hazes]

It's not uncommon on wild caught apistogramma. I don't remember the details but there is supposed to be an infectious agent that the fish's immune system controls by encapsulating them in melanin, which is black. Tank-bred fish and wild fish not exposed to this pathogen don't have the black spots. Since the infection happened long ago and was controlled it doesn't affect the health of the fish and it won't affect the offspring.