need some info on ap. baenschi and eliza

[ampdaman]

hello all. next weekend i have a chance to buy ap. baenschi and was lookin for some info on them such as breeding water perameters etc. im going to be housing them in a 15 gallon aquarium that will be mostly ADA old black wood and swords. How many might i be able to house in my 15? ive been told that they will form bonded pairs and end up killing the odd one out even though apistos are harem spawners.

Im also interested in ap. elizabethae. i doubt i can get a pair of these but im wondering what water conditions they need and also about breeding, and mayby someone could point towards where i might be able to purchase some?

Aso i have been wondering about indain almond leaves. i was hoping to buy some because ive been told they lower the ph and have other benafits such as tanning the water. can anyone give me some information on those as well? thanks in advance

-Aaron

 

[DH247]

Hey Aaron,
There have been a few threads on water parameters for A. Elizabethae and on almond leaves that I know of.

http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=5654&highlight=Almond+Leaves
http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=5557&highlight=eliza

As for water param's for these guys I really do like Mike Wise's advice, and get your hands on a Cichlid Atlas 1. Sadly that's the hard part, but there I think there was news of Atlas 1 being reprinted sometime soon. Cheers,

Cam

 

[blueblue]

Im also interested in ap. elizabethae. i doubt i can get a pair of these but im wondering what water conditions they need and also about breeding, and mayby someone could point towards where i might be able to purchase some?

-Aaron

Hi Aaron,

For eliza, there are many claims while making things simple: You need soft,
warm (~26-29C) and acidic water (i personally use pH from 5 to 6, even though some say 4-5 is better). A larger tanks is usually recommended but my personal experience makes me believe that it is not
necessary. Anyhow, a tank with a capacity of 20-40 liter is my personal recoomendation. You do need to make frequent water exchange with a smaller tank (something like 1/4 every three days). I have successfully bred at least tens of eliza pairs (or already over a hundred?!) and obtain thousands of F1 with this kind of parameters.

You could find a lot of Eliza in Asia such as Hong Kong, i have 16 breeding pairs at home at the moment, hehehee

 

[ampdaman]

thanks for the replies everyone. so the problem with elza isnt the care needed but how to get them :tongue: by the way blue blue your fish are absolutely amazing. down here in florida we dont get very many apistos wish i lived in hong kong when do you think the trade will start to come America's way?

 

[blueblue]

thanks for the replies everyone. so the problem with elza isnt the care needed but how to get them :tongue: by the way blue blue your fish are absolutely amazing. down here in florida we dont get very many apistos wish i lived in hong kong when do you think the trade will start to come America's way?

i was told that apistos were not really that popular in the States...
I believe that if a few enthusiastic hobbyists in the States have got a few
rare apistos species, the situation may change as they could breed them and spread them around. When people learn about these wonderful fish, they will chase for it...

 

[Mike Wise]

Blueblue, you forgot to tell him the prices you pay in Hong Kong. We Americans tend to be cheap bastards.:redface:

 

[apistobob]

I'll echo Mike on this one. There is a simple reason why we don't get the great fish - we are not willing to pay! As soon as the average American hobbyist is willing to pay hundreds of dollars for great fish we will have them available. Unfortunately, most of us think that a shop charging $50 for a pair of Apistos is somehow ripping us off. Why would a distributer send fish to us for a buck or two ehrn he can send them elsewhere for much more.

I would also add that if you ever find a LFS that carries dwarfs buy them. Patronize the shop, pay their prices and tell others. They will only continue to offer dwarfs if there is a demand. Lets remember that a shop will only be in business if they make a profit. If you value having them please shop with them!

Disclosure - I do not work in a shop, I have never worked in a shop and never plan to. However, I am dismayed by the shrinking number of independent shops in the US.

Bob

 

[ltrepeter2000]

Those members in and around Atlanta may want to check out Atlantis Aquarium in Roswell. I stumbled upon this shop and as the previous posts suggest to buy and help the shop prosper, I have been doing just that. This shop keeps 8 tanks of rotating dwarfs which shocked me when I looked at it from the outside and almost didnt even go inside. It kills me as the stores near my real home in DC arent nearly as prevalent. Its usually one or two types of dwarfs at most up there.

Thanks
Rob

 

[blueblue]

Blueblue, you forgot to tell him the prices you pay in Hong Kong. We Americans tend to be cheap bastards.:redface:

oh,... hehe... yes, we do pay a rather big amount of money,
especially for the wildcaught and the German ones...

 

[blueblue]

Bob and Rob: I understand the situation and probably we, consumers, can act as the "pull-force" which creates a demand and an incentive for the stores to import more apistos... i do not know if the stores in the US are willing to take the advance ordering approach under which customers can place an advance order and the store just acts as an agent to import and then fulfill the customer's order... it is risk free for the store and it's the way we hobbyists in Hong Kong got those rare and top quality apistos in the past (as no store was willing to take big risk to import very expensive fish at that time)...

 

[DH247]

I do like this idea, and I think it could be quite feasible if a number of members from the same area could get a order list in at a single chosen LFS. Alternately, find a LFS whose storefront is a side venture for a distribution company that is also run by the same individual. You may have to go to another spot for aquarium supplies but at least you could potentially have access to some pretty amazing fish that go through the hands of the distribution company. But I imagine this can be quite a bit harder to achieve. I was fortunate enough to find an individual doing this here in Vancouver but he's closed for the time being for some reno work. He's where I got my Melgar's and I know he usually likes to bring some apistos in every August when the season opens up.

Otherwise I don't know. I'm not in the industry so I'm going on what I feel to believe is common sense added with some good business practices. I would be interested in hearing some opinions from those who are in the industry who could explain a little bit about how the fish are boxed and how many are sent per shipment, etc.