New memeber and lifelong aquaholic coming back after a 15 year hiatus.. It's my son's

[ari]

Not really, But he thinks it is

Either way, there was a point in my life when I have 7 fish tanks going at once

Our new 40 gallon tank has been cycling for about 6 weeks and just received it's first water change. I'm running a bit more filter than recommend and ammonia is almost all the way gone It is beautifully planted with good lighting T5s @ 2watts/gallon. The plants are doing well. I have no plans for CO2.

I have always been an Apisto fan, but the closest I ever got to that were some Kribensis due to availability mostly (25 years ago).

I definitely want some cokatoos, agassizi, borreli, honsloi, kribensis (if they will work well) and rams. I have no issue setting up malawi style rocks and crevices if required

Will also supplement with tetras for some color and schooling fish and some top water fish. Hatchets, female betas, etc...

My question is how many different numbers of species or number of Apistos can i realistically expect to keep in a40 gallon tank?

 

[henkh]

Hello Ari,
Always nice to give a member of the familiy a present you are willing to have
About your plans, sounds nice. How may Apisto's depending on which Apisto's. Some are realy agressive and some do well in a group. Also depending on how you designed your tank. F.e. many plants, caves, drifwood, rocks, or hiding places and so on, or just much of empty space with much sight to all corners of the tank. In the first you can habitat more species/greater number than in the second where there is more eye to eye contact between the individuals. I think Rams and Borelli are well to start with, together with a school of tetra's.

 

[briztoon]

G'day ari,

What are the dimensions of your 40 gallon tank?

If it's a standard 40 gallon breeder (36" by 18" floor), I would say your looking at just a trio of apistos, or at most one male and three females. The more plants and cave structures of female apistos the better. However it's commonly accepted that each female requires roughly a 12" by 12" area for her territory.

It's not really good to mix species, especially ones with similar body shape as they will fight quite a lot.

In saying all this, I have seen very heavily stocked tanks, where there are so many fish, that aggression is dispersed amongst the group. These tanks typically have 10 plus males and 10 plus females of a single species. Needless to say, you are unlikely to have a successful spawn in such a set up.

 

[ari]

The tank is 36 x20 flooor area

so it should support 5 12x12 floor areas?

Readily available species are Kribensis, agasssizi, rams and cucatoides.

Any recommendations on which might get along best and how many?

 

[briztoon]

The tank is 36 x20 flooor area
so it should support 5 12x12 floor areas?

Unfortunately I don't think the fish will think like that.

What type of rams? Blue rams require different conditions to Bolivian rams. Bolivian rams are quite hardy, while Blue rams can be rather delicate and require higher temperatures that aren't suiteable for most apistos, certainly not cacatuoides or agassizii.

You really shouldn't mix Kribs with any of the South American dwarfs. If the kribs spawn, they will become far too aggressive for the SA dwarfs to handle.

Unless you heavily over stock with a single species, you shouldn't really keep dwarf cichlids in the same type of stocking setups that many of the African lake cichlids are kept in. I think that's the hardest thing for people who move from keeping Malawi cichlids to apistos, etc struggle with.

Realistically, in a community set up, you may try for two pairs of Bolivian rams, and a trio of cacatuoides. You can then look to add a couple of smallish schools of tetras. Tetras are another fish that many people have a misconception about. Most tetras aren't upper water schooling fish. Most of the time, they are midwater to lower water fish, so you will still have a lot of "empty" water. If you have a lot of branchy structures and plants that reach the surface, then the tetras will move higher in the water column. Basically like most fish, they don't feel comfortable in open, empty water.

 

[ari]

Ok I finally received a pair of Agassazi Tripe reds (both male and female are triple red) and a pair of cockatoos (with beautiful yellow markings on the male, female is pretty bland)! My fish store was nice enough to special order these for me. These are relatively rare in my area (Los Angeles). I've only seen these fish in pictures and you tube videos. Cool to have a few in my tank as I've always wanted these going back some 20 years. They do seem to hide a LOT! do you think they will come out after a week or so?