Hello Apisto people!

[Justin88]

Hi all,
I'm new here and new to Apistos in general. I have recently become the proud owner of a pair of Apistogramma Panduro and am loving the little guys. They have settled into the tank very quickly and made themselves at home, immediately forming a pair bond and spawning in a freshly dug out cave.
As I understand it, I am very lucky in the fact that A. I have managed to get a compatible pair out of a group of around 50 fairly juvenile fish at the store, and B. that they have successfully spawned and hatched fry that are now free swimming! First try! I am feeding twice a day with a mix of hikari first bites, hikari tropical granules and frozen artemia. I look forward to watching the parents raise these little guys and watching the fry grow. Should I leave the fry alone with the parents? How long for? Should I wait until they are say 10mm then move them to a separate tank to grow out? So many questions. I didn't expect this to happen so soon haha.
Happy fish keeping,
Justin.

 

[MacZ]

Should I leave the fry alone with the parents?

Best practice.

How long for?

Until the mother stops caring.

Should I wait until they are say 10mm then move them to a separate tank to grow out?

As per the answer before: Move them to growout once the mother doesn't care anymore. Typical sale (and sexing) size is 4cm (depending on conditions that's 4-8 months of growout). Do you have a place where you can take them? Like a store or a wholesaler? Otherwise separate the parents before the next spawn, because if not you will have the next clutch after 2-3 weeks. And so on. Depending on the species this might work out differently, but usually 1-3 spawns might flood the local market for at least a quarter of a year and leave you with a lot of fish you can't get rid of.

On another note: Most species spawn and then the male is redundant to the female and maybe chased off. Females tend to burn out from many spawns in a row. In captivity you will most often have a handful of spawns then they part ways. For breeders separation until both have recovered has worked out. But that only makes sense if you plan a breeding operation.

 

[Yvonne G]

Welcome!