Need help with sexing Apistogramma Elizabethae

[r9inthehouse]

Hi everyone!

I have bought a “pair” of Apistogramma Elizabethae last week and it was very tough to select a pair from the lot as most of them were too young to distinguish be appearance. With the aid of the shop owner I managed to pick a definite male (around 3cm I think?) whose 3rd dorsal fin was noticeably longer than others. While picking a female was a much tougher mission, I eventually picked a slightly larger fish with smooth dorsal fins and rounder body.

In the first few days, the male was doing better in settling in and was chasing the “female” around. However after almost a week, things changed and the “female” has turned more aggressive and managed to claim the area around the clay pot and would evict the male when he comes close.

Here is the tricky part, today I put a mirror on the side of the tank where they were at and the “female” flared to the reflection (not the first time) while the male showed no interest and kept on searching for food. I tried searching on the internet on female Apistogramma flaring at mirror but in vain.

I am totally aware of the existence of “sneaker male” but I’m really interested to know whether it is normal for females to flare at reflections, if not, I wonder why isn’t it one of the ways to sex them? Could anyone let me know whether it is normal for Apistogramma females to react to their reflections please? Many thanks in advance!

 

[MacZ]

Females also flare at each other if in spawning mood. So that reaction can be normal.
The biggest problem will be rather that at this size sexing is highly unreliable.

I recommend posting pictures, we have more than enough experts here.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Females also flare at each other if in spawning mood. So that reaction can be normal.
The biggest problem will be rather that at this size sexing is highly unreliable.

I recommend posting pictures, we have more than enough experts here.

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply! Sure, I only have a few videos with me and I’m sure a screenshot won’t help much, I’ll take some clear photos tomorrow!

 

[MacZ]

Sure, I only have a few videos with me and I’m sure a screenshot won’t help much

Correct. I'm not very sure.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Correct. I'm not very sure.

Hello! It was tough to take some clear shots but I think these are good to go! I let her look at the mirror today too and she did flare a bit but most of the time she was attacking the mirror instead, the male still showed no interest in the mirror…

This one has really smooth dorsal fins and round body, I also think she’s almost reached maturity if she indeed is a female? Thank you again for helping out!

 

[MacZ]

I have to pass unfortunately. To me both look too immature to confidently sex them.

Just one side note: Remove the green leaves. Those are almost a guarantee to trigger a bacteria bloom. Same for too many alder cones. I use those to brew up an extract but don't add them to a tank directly as the seeds swell up and then start to rot. The influx of nutrients should be regulated. Brown leaves luckily barely contain anything besides humic substances and cellulose.

 

[Apistoguy52]

Hello! It was tough to take some clear shots but I think these are good to go! I let her look at the mirror today too and she did flare a bit but most of the time she was attacking the mirror instead, the male still showed no interest in the mirror…

This one has really smooth dorsal fins and round body, I also think she’s almost reached maturity if she indeed is a female? Thank you again for helping out!

I can’t see enough of the details to make a good judgment, but elizabethea are pretty easy. If she is a she, you’ll be able to see vertical bands that run top to bottom on the whole tail fin. If “she” is a sneaky he, you’ll only see pattern on the bottom half of the tail.

 

[r9inthehouse]

I have to pass unfortunately. To me both look too immature to confidently sex them.

Just one side note: Remove the green leaves. Those are almost a guarantee to trigger a bacteria bloom. Same for too many alder cones. I use those to brew up an extract but don't add them to a tank directly as the seeds swell up and then start to rot. The influx of nutrients should be regulated. Brown leaves luckily barely contain anything besides humic substances and cellulose.

Got it! The green ones are dried leaves from camphor trees, I heard that these can be added but apparently what I got are green instead of red, I’ll remove them anyways just in case.

Guess I can only wait

 

[r9inthehouse]

I can’t see enough of the details to make a good judgment, but elizabethea are pretty easy. If she is a she, you’ll be able to see vertical bands that run top to bottom on the whole tail fin. If “she” is a sneaky he, you’ll only see pattern on the bottom half of the tail.

Thanks for the information! Actually some of the shots I took today have a clearer image of the tail, is this enough to see please?

 

[Apistoguy52]

Thanks for the information! Actually some of the shots I took today have a clearer image of the tail, is this enough to see please?

Pattern on the bottom half, pattern on the top half, I’d say she is actually a she.

 

[MacZ]

Got it! The green ones are dried leaves from camphor trees, I heard that these can be added but apparently what I got are green instead of red, I’ll remove them anyways just in case.

Guess I can only wait

Dried green leaves are shrimp food, brown ones are botanicals. Lot of stores sell green ones in the botanical section. Means they have no idea what they're doing and leads to others assuming that green or brown doesn't make a difference. Pretty sure your source for that info didn't know or mention that then.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Pattern on the bottom half, pattern on the top half, I’d say she is actually a she.

Cool! I knew the tails are different but wasn’t sure about it, in this case I’ll wait for male to grow and see how it goes then! Thanks a lot again!

 

[r9inthehouse]

Dried green leaves are shrimp food, brown ones are botanicals. Lot of stores sell green ones in the botanical section. Means they have no idea what they're doing and leads to others assuming that green or brown doesn't make a difference. Pretty sure your source for that info didn't know or mention that then.

Haha it’s me who didn’t know, the leaves were sold as some kind of Chinese medicine for human consumption and I didn’t think it mattered much whether they were green or brown, fortunately you let me know before it’s too late.

 

[MacZ]

Ah, I see. Well then, all right on time.

The only thing of interest also used in traditional (mostly indian) medicine is Catappa. Also only the brown leaves are of use. But outside regions where that tree grows you only get brown leaves anyway.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Hi guys, thanks for the previous help! That one was indeed a female and is quite a beautiful one!
She grew really fast and she has got very big now, when I first introduced the pair into the tank, the male was the one chasing the female around but after a few days it was the other way round and What the hell male disappeared one day and I found his body the other day, I think he didn’t get through some unknown disease since I saw him scratching against a piece of driftwood one day and all the other fish (tetras and Otocinclus) are thriving.

And so I was out to search for another male and again, all fish from the seller were quite immature to sex them on the spot, eventually I picked one which looked slimmer and relatively longer pelvic fins, and the caudal fin was not so round compared to the others.

‘He’ has been here for a few days now and everything is fine, he’s also getting bigger, though still a lot smaller than the female. The female is chasing him around and he would flee if the female gets too close, but I notice that he’s getting less and less scared of the female and he even stood firmly against her today when I fed them grindal worms.

I tried to take some clear shots for a few days but have failed and finally managed to take some just now, they looked really alike apart from the pelvic fins which worries me that I have two females, but it’s actually okay as I can always get a male for them to raise as a group.

Here are some photos, could you guys please help me out again and see whether this one looks more like a male or female? Thanks a lot!

Btw, I have a tough time to maintain a low ph, I think one of the problems is that I am using 2 sponge filters which pump in a lot of fresh air and it’s hard for co2 to stay to form carbonate acid.

I used tap water to set the tank up and switched to RO water recently to try to bring down the tds by regular water change, the ph is now 6.9 (was 6.5 yesterday) and keeps raising, tds around 170 and is dropping with water changes.

From what I understand, KH has a buffer effect that prevents the ph from changing too much and possibly the KH from the tap water is still in there and keeps pulling the ph up? Any thoughts?

I know that keeping the ph steady is a lot more important than to keep pushing it down causing fluctuations, so I don’t think I would put pure chemicals into the tank, but any suggestions on how I can keep it steadily low please?

 

[MacZ]

Btw, I have a tough time to maintain a low ph, I think one of the problems is that I am using 2 sponge filters which pump in a lot of fresh air and it’s hard for co2 to stay to form carbonate acid.

Do you inject CO2? If not it doesn't matter, as the amount of dissolved CO2 is dependant on the KH.

I know that keeping the ph steady is a lot more important than to keep pushing it down causing fluctuations, so I don’t think I would put pure chemicals into the tank, but any suggestions on how I can keep it steadily low please?

Misconception 1: pH is never really steady.
Misconception 2: pH is not as important as EC/TDS.
Misconception 3: pH-fluctuations become dangerous in their period (timeframe), not their amplitude. A change of +/- 1.5 pH points is irrelevant if it changes slowly over the course of the day. It only becomes dangerous the shorter the timeframe. So that amplitude within 15 minutes is indeed dangerous.

From what I understand, KH has a buffer effect that prevents the ph from changing too much and possibly the KH from the tap water is still in there and keeps pulling the ph up? Any thoughts?

Correct, the higher the KH, the higher the pH. Do you know your KH? If not it is impossible to determine any course of action at all.

I used tap water to set the tank up and switched to RO water recently to try to bring down the tds by regular water change, the ph is now 6.9 (was 6.5 yesterday) and keeps raising, tds around 170 and is dropping with water changes.

TDS alone can be anything. The T stands for total. You have to determine the composition, otherwise you won't be able to do anything considerate.

What source water are you using?
My recommendation is using RO, rainwater or distilled water. All of them have their pros and cons, but all of them provide lowest possible conductivity and a KH below detection level. You can have true softwater only by eliminating KH. Instead, humic substances take over as buffers, giving you a pH-range between 4 and 6 which is a safe range for pretty much all south american dwarf cichlids, tetras, pencils and catfish occuring between Colombia/Venezuela and Northern Argentina and between Peru and the Atlantic. Also no fear of GH/KH reading zero. a. this is only an approximation as test kits for aquarium use are not as precise as people might think and b. not a problem at all, as long as the water keeps being enriched with humic substances.
I keep my fish in a TDS of around 30 and a pH between 5 and 5.5 and add a lot of brew from leaf litter, alder cones and rooibos.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Do you inject CO2? If not it doesn't matter, as the amount of dissolved CO2 is dependant on the KH.

Misconception 1: pH is never really steady.
Misconception 2: pH is not as important as EC/TDS.
Misconception 3: pH-fluctuations become dangerous in their period (timeframe), not their amplitude. A change of +/- 1.5 pH points is irrelevant if it changes slowly over the course of the day. It only becomes dangerous the shorter the timeframe. So that amplitude within 15 minutes is indeed dangerous.

Correct, the higher the KH, the higher the pH. Do you know your KH? If not it is impossible to determine any course of action at all.

TDS alone can be anything. The T stands for total. You have to determine the composition, otherwise you won't be able to do anything considerate.

What source water are you using?
My recommendation is using RO, rainwater or distilled water. All of them have their pros and cons, but all of them provide lowest possible conductivity and a KH below detection level. You can have true softwater only by eliminating KH. Instead, humic substances take over as buffers, giving you a pH-range between 4 and 6 which is a safe range for pretty much all south american dwarf cichlids, tetras, pencils and catfish occuring between Colombia/Venezuela and Northern Argentina and between Peru and the Atlantic. Also no fear of GH/KH reading zero. a. this is only an approximation as test kits for aquarium use are not as precise as people might think and b. not a problem at all, as long as the water keeps being enriched with humic substances.
I keep my fish in a TDS of around 30 and a pH between 5 and 5.5 and add a lot of brew from leaf litter, alder cones and rooibos.

Nope, I don’t inject CO2 since I only have low light plants like Java fern, and I just tested the KH along with other parameters of the tank water and tap water and I think the tap water has around 20-30mg of KH per L? And it shows that it’s almost 0 in my tank, I think the water changes did the trick. I have attached a photo of the testing strips and the left one is tap water.

I understand tds is the total dissolved solids and anything in there counts and I actually tried to brew an extract with RO water as you suggested and it has quite a high number of tds, is it normal? I am still not sure how much to add with each water change but I will figure it out myself.

As to the fluctuations, it is the timeframe im concerning, I have attached a ph down filter on my RO machine so the water reads a ph of around 5 I think, and I would put a bag of peat with the water in a bucket and get it ready for water changes, so the water I use for water changes has quite a low ph, and usually the ph of the tank would ready a low 6 or even a higher 5, but it will gradually raise over the days. Theoretically speaking, the ph impact should be higher if the ph of the tank water is higher, am I right? For instance, if the tank water has a ph of 7.5, doing a 30% water change with ph 5 water would bring more impact than if the tank water was already 5.5?

So I’m really uncomfortable seeing the ph slowly raising over the days not knowing when it would stop. Nothing in the tank is meant to bring up ph, at least not that I know of, I’m really confused here.

One very important factor is that my electronic ph reader may not be working properly as the strip reads a lower 6 instead of 6.9 as my reader says? I will calibrate it later anyways.

I really want to do everything right so the fish can feel better and do well, that’s my purpose of keeping a South American tank in the first place.

Besides this, any thoughts on the gender please?

 

[MacZ]

Nope, I don’t inject CO2 since I only have low light plants like Java fern,

Good.

and I just tested the KH along with other parameters of the tank water and tap water and I think the tap water has around 20-30mg of KH per L? And it shows that it’s almost 0 in my tank, I think the water changes did the trick. I have attached a photo of the testing strips and the left one is tap water.

If you have any live plants KH tends to lower, also the addition of humic substances may counter to a degree, though usually not a lot. Also, there has nothing been attached.

I understand tds is the total dissolved solids and anything in there counts and I actually tried to brew an extract with RO water as you suggested and it has quite a high number of tds, is it normal? I am still not sure how much to add with each water change but I will figure it out myself.

Yes, relatively high TDS, though usually when diluted in the tank with more RO, that is balanced out. My brew has about 80 mg/l TDS, and is then diluted to under 30 in the tank.
My recipe:
2 liters of RO (near boiling)
5-8 medium leaves (I prefer oak and beech)
10-20 alder cones.
2-3 teabags of rooibos (organic and no additives whatsoever)
Let steep until cold or at least an hour and then use to warm up RO for a waterchange in a bucket.
Problem is: natural products never deliver steady readings so the numbers can vary.

As to the fluctuations, it is the timeframe im concerning, I have attached a ph down filter on my RO machine so the water reads a ph of around 5 I think, and I would put a bag of peat with the water in a bucket and get it ready for water changes, so the water I use for water changes has quite a low ph, and usually the ph of the tank would ready a low 6 or even a higher 5, but it will gradually raise over the days.

A pH-down filter? I have the feeling this might be something to be replaced often as a scam, like filter cartridges.
The peat is a good choice and basically all you need to rely on then.

Theoretically speaking, the ph impact should be higher if the ph of the tank water is higher, am I right? For instance, if the tank water has a ph of 7.5, doing a 30% water change with ph 5 water would bring more impact than if the tank water was already 5.5?

pH is a relative thing. It measures H+ ions. Those are highly reactive and the scale is not linear, so mixing and matching as with hardness is not possible. Dilution can make the pH rise if the water you use contains barely anything but H2O. The CO2/KH/pH equilibrium will even out any irregularities aswell. So the purer the water the more impact acids like humic substances have. Tried adding a bag of peat to the tank itself? The longer it sits, the better. If you only add the pretreated water the peat has only added a fraction of its humic substances and acids to the water.

My best guess here in your case: Do you have anything in the tank that might raise hardness? The sand might be a culprit, as it often tends to be. Many times coarser sand contains crushed coral or is made from limestone. That would explain a lot. Same goes for whatever rocks you might have in the tank. Additionally the amounts of humic substances might be to low. Take a looking glass (or something else with a higher magnifying potential) and look at the sand. I'm almost completely sure that might be the problem in conjunction with too little humic substances.

One very important factor is that my electronic ph reader may not be working properly as the strip reads a lower 6 instead of 6.9 as my reader says? I will calibrate it later anyways.

What strips do you use, btw? They are usually not as accurate if they are the commercial aquarium kind. Same goes for drip tests who get less reliable under 2°KH. And finally pH-meters also have problems in soft water. The pen-meters usually won't work properly if the EC is too low.
Anyhow, the pH is still not as important.

Besides this, any thoughts on the gender please?

Pass. I can only tell the new fish is not in good (still not worrying) shape, but nothing more.

 

[r9inthehouse]

Good.

If you have any live plants KH tends to lower, also the addition of humic substances may counter to a degree, though usually not a lot. Also, there has nothing been attached.


Yes, relatively high TDS, though usually when diluted in the tank with more RO, that is balanced out. My brew has about 80 mg/l TDS, and is then diluted to under 30 in the tank.
My recipe:
2 liters of RO (near boiling)
5-8 medium leaves (I prefer oak and beech)
10-20 alder cones.
2-3 teabags of rooibos (organic and no additives whatsoever)
Let steep until cold or at least an hour and then use to warm up RO for a waterchange in a bucket.
Problem is: natural products never deliver steady readings so the numbers can vary.

A pH-down filter? I have the feeling this might be something to be replaced often as a scam, like filter cartridges.
The peat is a good choice and basically all you need to rely on then.


pH is a relative thing. It measures H+ ions. Those are highly reactive and the scale is not linear, so mixing and matching as with hardness is not possible. Dilution can make the pH rise if the water you use contains barely anything but H2O. The CO2/KH/pH equilibrium will even out any irregularities aswell. So the purer the water the more impact acids like humic substances have. Tried adding a bag of peat to the tank itself? The longer it sits, the better. If you only add the pretreated water the peat has only added a fraction of its humic substances and acids to the water.

My best guess here in your case: Do you have anything in the tank that might raise hardness? The sand might be a culprit, as it often tends to be. Many times coarser sand contains crushed coral or is made from limestone. That would explain a lot. Same goes for whatever rocks you might have in the tank. Additionally the amounts of humic substances might be to low. Take a looking glass (or something else with a higher magnifying potential) and look at the sand. I'm almost completely sure that might be the problem in conjunction with too little humic substances.


What strips do you use, btw? They are usually not as accurate if they are the commercial aquarium kind. Same goes for drip tests who get less reliable under 2°KH. And finally pH-meters also have problems in soft water. The pen-meters usually won't work properly if the EC is too low.
Anyhow, the pH is still not as important.


Pass. I can only tell the new fish is not in good (still not worrying) shape, but nothing more.

Sorry! I think the photo is now working.

Yeah I tried to place the bag of peat in the tank and it can get as low as 5 in ph, I just don’t really like the look of it hanging a bag in the middle of the tank, I don’t think there is enough room to hide the bag in the back either…

The substrate I use is ADA Colorado sand and it’s said not to affect water hardness and ph. I also added 1 litre of Amazonia soil in one corner.

About the fish, could you please let me know what the problem is? It was kept in a plain tank with other Elizabethae’s and it was not in a good shape (broken fins etc.) when I got it. I’ll see what I can do if you can let me know any points to note, thank you again!

 

[MacZ]

Sorry! I think the photo is now working.

Ah. So the the pH-scale doesn't go low enough on the strips anyway. I wouldn't count on them at all.

Yeah I tried to place the bag of peat in the tank and it can get as low as 5 in ph, I just don’t really like the look of it hanging a bag in the middle of the tank, I don’t think there is enough room to hide the bag in the back either…

Again, I wouldn't trust the readings. And well... you could use several smaller bags instead, couldn't you?

The substrate I use is ADA Colorado sand and it’s said not to affect water hardness and ph. I also added 1 litre of Amazonia soil in one corner.

I don't speak brand names, usually I pick whatever I need by the specifications. So I'd have to look this up. Soil usually loses its pH-lowering effect after 2-6 months depending on the amounts.

Mind to show a picture of the whole tank? Maybe something else shows then you wouldn't recognize but others might.

About the fish, could you please let me know what the problem is?

- Still very thin.
- Still stress colouration.
- Something's wrong with the mouth but I can't really pinpoint it. Keep an eye on that.