Too many for one tank?

[hudsonpd]

Hi all,

A year a go I bought a pair of Apisto Agassizi but the young 'female' turned out to be male. One since died.

So this wkd I saw in my LFS some Peruvian imported Agassizi so I decided to buy some more. Now, my plan was to buy 3 female and 1 male to go in with the existing male.

I have a 200l, 1 metre tank which is 30-50% planted and 3 caves and bog wood. So I figured this would be fine. It is a community tank with primarily tetra and very under stocked at present.

Now, I'm worried that again I have bought too young and 1 or 2 may actually be male also!

My question is should I try and locate more females fast? Can I keep harmony by adding more females into the tank? Do you create more harmony by adding females?

I have read competing info - obviously most advice is for a trio or maybe 2 pairs if the tank is big enough or well designed. But I did see somewhere that if you added several female you would be ok keeping more males as well - as long as the ratio of female was large enough?

I'm sure you are all going to think me stupid to have got to this point!

A secondary question is if I can only find tank bred 'double red' females (the LFS I bought from clearly has a tank full of males at the moment) can I mix them?

Paul

 

[Mike Wise]

No, adding extra females into the mix will not necessarily reduce territorial aggression. In polygamous species, like A. agassizii, the dominant male will try to claim as much territory (with as many female territories) as possible. More territorial boundaries might work, however.

As for adding double red aggies to your wild fish is your choice. They are (probably) all the same species.

 

[hudsonpd]

Thanks Mike, very useful - I hadn't thought of it like that before.

How would go about creating more boundaries - with extra wood, roots etc?

As for adding double red aggies - surely they are both Agassizi species? Or do you mean, more specifically Netz/Tefe etc? They must surely all have the same genetic basis? Although I suppose with tank bred, you don't know quite how they have created the enhanced colour morph etc so they could have a different influence in the line?

As its a community tank, I doubt breeding will be particularly successful anyway and it wasn't intended as a breeding programme

 

[Mike Wise]

Cichlids tend to be very visually oriented. More territories means breaking up the line-of-sight used by the fish into smaller areas. In other words, 'out of site, out of mind'. Two relatively equal males will use visual markers for territorial boundaries. They tend to display at the boundary line but not cross it. Building boundaries can be done using plants, rocks, wood, etc. to hide parts of the tank from view of other parts. Although it can work well, it usually makes a community tank appear 'cluttered'.

A. agassizii is a very interesting 'species'. IMHO, it is actually a superspecies composed of several (at least 4, possibly more) closely related, recently genetically separated species. Speciation has occurred fairly recently, geologically, so the different species are still able to interbreed if given no option. Breeders of special strains really are more interested in developing domestic strains than keeping the individual species pure, so they probably used populations/species from various places to develop the desired traits. There is nothing really wrong with it as long as the buyer knows and is OK with this.

 

[hudsonpd]

Thanks Mike. I will have a think about how I can add more boundaries etc as I am planning a bit of a change anyway. However, last night they were all going all over the tank without too much trouble.

I will also post up some pics of some of them in order to get your thoughts on species. As now I've looked closely they don't necessarily follow what I would have expected. Even the original, supposedly wild 'tefe' doesn't have a black band across its gill, so to speak. And is quite large and colourless. I know the species tends to be quite varied in colour morphs.

And the new new supposedly wild male actually looks to be evolving quite closely to the domestic 'double red' although not quite as red, more orange!

 

[hudsonpd]

My large male, was sold as wild "Tefe"





And my new male, sold as wild from peru



The females have all been too secretive and fast moving.

What do you think to the above? Genuine as sole?

 

[Mike Wise]

Based on the net-like scale pattern and lack of wavy lines on the flanks, I would say that your "Tefe" is A. cf. agassizii (Netz/Net). The photo of the wild Peruvian fish is out of focus, but it appears to be a form of A. agassizii. Which one it is, I cannot say from this photo.