new and wilhelmi again

[Mark]

Hi to all,

I am new to this forum and I hope I will be able to give some aswers and share experiences with you. I am a small Apisto breeder in The Netherlands. At the moment I have
A. eremnopyge (spawning, not hatching)
A. gibbiceps Rio Negro (breeding)
A. cacatuoides Wild colors (breeding)
A. baenschi (breeding)
A. nijsseni
A. agassizi alenquer (just spawned)

These are all wildcaugth fish (I prefer to use wildcaugth fish)

I am looking for A. wilhelmi and Cruzeiro, but I can't get wild fish here. Now I can get tank-bred wilhelmi's for a big price.

My first question to you is; Do you think keeping and breeding them will be possible without using water of Ph 4 ? At the moment I have 1 wildcaugth male in normal tapwater and he is indestructable. He is the last one to die because of temperature or water changes.. I have read some earlier comments but it's not clear to me yet. I hope someone breeds these fish and will be able to give some hints.

I hope you can help me.

Mark Klootwijk

 

[Fisherking]

Hi, I hope I can help you. My experience with wilhelmis is that they are very "friendly" towards each other compered to other apisto. But they need very low ph to get the eggs to hatch, usaly under 4 ph. I have tried to get them to breed in higher ph but they just dont want to. The parents died a few weeks ago(think they were wery old) but I have 15 fry that are almost 2cm. So I hope i get both genders.

 

[cageman]

the netherlands represent again.
can't help you sorry.
but I think I have baenschi that came from you in my tank .
nice list by the way.

 

[Mark]

Thanks for the experience so far. As I understand keeping them alive is not difficult but breeding is only possible at Ph below 4. How do you get your water below 4? Untill now I use RO water with peat, but I won't get below 4. What do you do to get there?

Mark

 

[Fisherking]

Hi, the water here were I live has a harness below 1. From there it is not that difficult to lower the ph below 4. But it depends wery much on what kind of peat you are using. I use big bag of peat(50cm x 30cm x 50cm) with peat in a plastic tub(80l) with a big powerhead to make the water run over the peat for a few hours(to get as low as possibel) before I do a water change.