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What's up people. New apistogramma owner here in the uk!

Maq

New Member
Messages
4
After being absent from fish keeping for many years I found myself over the past several months squaring and setting up two comminuted aquariums!

I started witn a 90l (30x12x15") which I must admit I rushed in to. Only used a gravel substrate didn't research the plants I used and just got it up and running sweet got some community guys and hey ho I nice little tank, soon plants melted and algae took over! Lesson learnt

All wasn't lost all my mistakes and much more research I got my self a 120l which has become my pride and joy a heavily "planted dirted" this thing is unreal cycled in 21 days... I've covered about 80% of the substrate with plants. I've used loads of different species, equally spread out so they do their job evenly, I've got stem plants root feeders floating plants, snail, shrimp all doing their bit,

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I'm running two filters an internal fluval u3 and a APS1400ef+ water column turn over about 18x an hour, both running filter floss and ceramic media, the ef is housing about 1.2 kg of ceramic rings and about 1kg of biohome ultra.

I've never had an ammonia reading since the cycle nor nitrites and my nitrates never creep about 10/20 ppm, ph is nice and low too, I use rolled up almond leaves and stick them in the bog wood behind the internal filter and have one floating too!

Great filtration, freak media and great plants all doing their bit to keep nitrates down!

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Today I added my last fish three Apistogramma Agassizi Fire Red

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I've got a small 45l tank I'm gonna set up on the kitchen, thought about use this as a breeding tank. How ever I've never bred fish, what kinda research am I gonna need to do to hopefully be successful!
 

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rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
If the apistos are happy they'll just get on and do it themselves. What measure is the pH and the hardness? There appear to be plenty of hiding places and plants to break up the bottom into territories which is what they'll need. One idea could also be to make some coconut caves with a very small notch cut into the rim. The females will often go and lay eggs in here and they can be covered with java moss (which I note you already have) and become hardly noticeable. The more possible laying sites, the better to reduce problems and confrontation between females. The females will often fight on the border of their territory and establish new borders. You have plenty of java moss which is good for growing micro-organisms that the fry will eat. The females will often lay mongst leaf litter as well or on the leaves of plants and the fry will eat small beasties that are breaking down the leaves. However, you probably won't get many fry survive, if any in a community tank so you may want to use the breeder if you're serious about it. Apisto fry reportedly grow better when left with the mother than when raised alone.
What other fish do you have in this tank and how many? This will also affect fry survival rates.
 

Maq

New Member
Messages
4
The tank is heavily stocked, I'd like to leave them there and hope for the best but I know survival will be unlikely :-/ But as I have never bred fish id like to try and achieve it at least once. PH is sitting at around 6/7 not sure about the hardness I'll have to buy myself a test to accompany the standard api test kit I have
 

rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
Your A. agassizi will probably breed at pH7 but may well depend on hardness as well. Never bred that strain of water and my water is lovely and soft here. Where abouts in the UK are you? You can get an idea of your water hardness by looking at the united utilities website. What species do you have in the tank fish-wise? There may be others that are easy to breed as well.
 

Maq

New Member
Messages
4
Hey, I'm in Leicestershire rr16, once I have some time think I'll set up a breeding tank in the kitchen... I have bleeding heart tetras, siamese algae eaters, peppered corys and panda corys. In this tank. In the other 90l I have yoyo loaches, platinum tetras and dwarf honey gouramis. The end game is to combine these two tanks in to a large 300l and use the 110 as a Amazonian biotope
 

rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
The biotope sounds good (as do the others!). The bleeding hearts will probably predate the apisto fry and the cories will most likely blunder on through the apisto territory, disturbing them and not giving a monkeys and probably try to eat apisto eggs and fry. The 45 l may do, but it may be a bit small for breeding the apistos in (but may work for a single pair?). What is the footprint (base dimensions) of the 45l?
If you wanted to set up a breeding tank for apistos I'd recommend lots of oak, beech or catappa (or a combination of all three) leaf litter, with a combination of largish and smallish oak branches/bogwood (if you wanted to go for a more natural look that is) on a base of sand. Adding some java moss (although not native to the amazon) would provide a medium for small organisms to grow on for the young to eat. If you can get the conditions right and have no fry predators then apistos are easy to breed in my opinion (says the man who has only reared a total of 3 fry to 10 weeks so far - but then my tanks are full of fry predators!).
 

Maq

New Member
Messages
4
Yea the bleeding hearts are ferocious eaters fry won't stand a chance!, when feeding
They look like a school of piranhas lolz The 45 unfortunately isn't very long or wide I think it only 24x12x12" maybe not even that large, may have to wait till I have the 300l and hope that there's enough foliage for a coupe of fry to survive if they do breed. I have a huge oak tree hanging over my garden from a neighbour so plenty of leaves, I've also got a stock of about 25 catappa leaves in a bag, never enough tanks and too many ideas.....
 

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