Shy Apistogramma gephyra

[raymond82]

I have a trio of wild caught A. gephyra who used to do quite well but lately became very timid. They used to breed almost continuously but lately I've seen eggs from time to time but no freeswimming fry. They don't show any obvious signs of disease, their fins are not clamped but they do show the shaded body color that I usually see in scared/sick fish.

One particular thing happened to the aquarium, because of lack of space the tank became too crowded with fry and water quality deteriorated. I noticed at a point when fry actually had died, I removed the fry then and did a water change but I have the feeling that ever since the fish behave differently. This happened more than two months ago.

Water values:
pH = 6
KH = 0
Nitrite = 0
55 μS
24 degrees Celcius

This is the aquarium, the light looks bright on the picture but it's a 3W saving bulb. The aquarium measures 60x40x25 cm and they share it with three ember tetra's and one N. eques.

Any idea what could be going on?

Thanks!!

 

[Mike Wise]

I really don't know. I would think that after 2 months they would have acclimated to the changes. How old are these fish? Maybe they are getting a bit old. Older fish will slow down their spawning.

 

[raymond82]

Yesterday I rearranged the wood in the aquarium and today one of the females spawned!! Hopefully she'll raise the fry to free swimming this time, I'll keep a close eye on them.

I'm not sure what age they are, I bought them as wild caught but when I bought them they were considerably smaller. I had to go back to some of my old posts to find out I bought them in July last year and the first time I noticed the shy behavior of the parents was in October. After that I think I had only one batch of fry growing up out of many spawnings.

 

[Mike Wise]

Wonderful! I guess they didn't like the previous decor - some sort of Feng Shui problem.

 

[raymond82]

Hahaha! I will make sure to setup harmonious decors in the future, optimized for receiving the proper energy fields! I have to say that on the night of the decor change I also fed them some big fat Enchytraeids, just to be sure I'll keep doing that too...

 

[raymond82]

Right now the other female is also in the process of spawning, quite amazing what a little change of decor can do...

One important thing I forgot to mention before is that the last two times one of the females spawned she was hardly in the cave. Instead, she was ~10 cm away from the cave hiding under a piece of wood and would go in and out quickly every once in a while. Both times there were a lot of eggs but no free swimming fry. It looked to me as if she didn't feel safe in and around the cave, could this less intense care have affected egg development?

 

[Chris D'Arminio]

I have a trio of wild caught A. gephyra who used to do quite well but lately became very timid. They used to breed almost continuously but lately I've seen eggs from time to time but no freeswimming fry. They don't show any obvious signs of disease, their fins are not clamped but they do show the shaded body color that I usually see in scared/sick fish.

One particular thing happened to the aquarium, because of lack of space the tank became too crowded with fry and water quality deteriorated. I noticed at a point when fry actually had died, I removed the fry then and did a water change but I have the feeling that ever since the fish behave differently. This happened more than two months ago.

Water values:
pH = 6
KH = 0
Nitrite = 0
55 μS
24 degrees Celcius

This is the aquarium, the light looks bright on the picture but it's a 3W saving bulb. The aquarium measures 60x40x25 cm and they share it with three ember tetra's and one N. eques.

Any idea what could be going on?

Thanks!!

The scenario you described is very similar to what I am experiencing now with my lone male Apistogramma sp. Tefe