New To Breeding, advice wanted.

[Memeboi]

I have a pair of A.Borellii I intend to breed soon, however I am unsure of the way the process works and I do have a few personal limitations.

• I only have frozen BBS
• I will have to go for a short vacation during winter break (not my choice but I can't do anything about it)
• I do not currently posses a gravel vacuum, and the tanks substrate is really gross (water change forced all the wood scum everywhere).
• I don't have that much time on my hands (full honors does that to someone).

I would really like a full walk through the breeding and raising of this species, as I am very unsure of how everything will go down.

• I really want to know about optimal temperature for breeding and growing out A.Borellii, I have heard about temperature affecting gender ratios and as such If there is a way to make more males I would take it (Males more valuable for selling).
• what should I feed before they are big enough for BBS
• how long until they are sell able size, and what is the water change regiment necessary for fry.

 

[Apistoguy52]

Learn how to hatch BBS, things that move get eaten quicker than things that don’t.

79* f is the Goldilocks zone ( equal males/females). Cooler than 79 skews female, warmer skews male.

They are large enough to eat bbs from day 1.

Sellable size, or full glory? Borellii are horribly slow growers. I would expect no less than a year to get adult sized fish. 6-8 months probably gets you to males that are starting to color up.

Hatch some bbs and crank the heater up to 86*

 

[Mike Wise]

My suggestion is get a good book on dwarf cichlids, even if it is old, and read it.

 

[Memeboi]

I've decided to actually just make a community tank, its actually doing really good rn, But i do have a question
I really want to breed my borellii at some point, but what is an average lifespan for them, I don't want to have my apistogramma's die on me before im ready to breed them.

My suggestion is get a good book on dwarf cichlids, even if it is old, and read it.

 

[Mike Wise]

Typically 2 - 4 years, but 2 is more likely. If you get your apistos as sexable adults then expect them to be 6 months old at least.

 

[anewbie]

My F1 female nijenssi is over 3 years old and doing quite well but the borelli i purchased as pre adults only lived about 20 months - maybe a bit longer depending how old they were when shipped. My domestic cockatoo did not live much longer than a year and my domestic hongsloi made it for about 2 to 3 years if memory serves me right. My nanacara amolae is probably around 4 years old now. While different species my guess is young WC or F1 fishes are going to live longer; the domestic breeds seem to have a lot of inbreeding.

 

[Mazan]

I had a wild caught agassizii that lived only about 18 months, and some wild cacatuoides for just over two years.

 

[Memeboi]

Typically 2 - 4 years, but 2 is more likely. If you get your apistos as sexable adults then expect them to be 6 months old at least.

god, thats really quite short, I've had my apistos since june, they were pretty small then (pre adults), but they are domestic A. Borellii Sp. Opal, so are definitely rather inbred. I better start making plans to get a wild caught pair eventually, just to breed more vivacious fish.