Why are Apistogramma steindachneri unpopular ?

[anewbie]

From my reading Apistogramma steindachneri seems like a decent 'easy to keep' fish given that it is white water et all yet i almost never see it for sale. I do realize it prefers warmer waters in the low 80s but in some cases that would be a positive for those of you in airzona with broken acs. Is there some 'negative' that makes this fish unpopular ?

 

[Apistoguy52]

It’s from Brazil….American fish keepers are cheap….fish importers import fish that they can turn a profit on.

 

[anewbie]

It’s from Brazil….American fish keepers are cheap….fish importers import fish that they can turn a profit on.

I don't understand; all apistogramma are from native to sa is there something special about Brazil as oppose to peru or ....

 

[Apistoguy52]

I don't understand; all apistogramma are from native to sa is there something special about Brazil as oppose to peru or ....

$$$

the cost of shipping from from Brazil, was 3x the cost of shipping fish from Colombia. Manaus to São Paulo to Miami is waaaaay more expensive that Bogota to Dallas

 

[Apistomaster]

When I had a fish store, circa 1970, I would sometimes get A. steindachneri as "assorted Dwarf Cichlids.
They're kind of large and plain, imo.
I was never happy to see them as I really wanted prettier, as least to me, Apistogramma sp. In lots of 25, they wholesaled for $0.35 each.
The only thing worse, to me anyway, is when I would order 100 "assorted dwarf cichlids at $0.20 each from a different source and they would all be Nannacara anomala. I swear, these could be bred in a plastic bag.
I had more luck getting more interesting Apisto's as juveniles bycaught and shipped with the box lots of Cardinal Tetras.

 

[anewbie]

When I had a fish store, circa 1970, I would sometimes get A. steindachneri as "assorted Dwarf Cichlids.
They're kind of large and plain, imo.
I was never happy to see them as I really wanted prettier, as least to me, Apistogramma sp. In lots of 25, they wholesaled for $0.35 each.
The only thing worse, to me anyway, is when I would order 100 "assorted dwarf cichlids at $0.20 each from a different source and they would all be Nannacara anomala. I swear, these could be bred in a plastic bag.
I had more luck getting more interesting Apisto's as juveniles bycaught and shipped with the box lots of Cardinal Tetras.

And which ones did you find interesting? Btw i've been very happy with my nannacara anomala; ok it isn't the prettiest fish but he seems to have a much wider range of behavior than the apisto i've owned.

 

[Ttw]

In the 1980's I bought steindachneri that were called wickleri. They were larger than the more common steindachneri. Also I believe they came from Guyana, Venezuela, and Surinam.

 

[MacZ]

It’s from Brazil…

Is there an unknown population nobody ever mentions?

Also I believe they came from Guyana, Venezuela, and Surinam.

I don't know about the situation in Venezuela (which is a can of worms in itself due to politics) but the species is indeed mainly known from populations in the Guyanas, which regulate exports a lot (due to close ties to the former european colonial powers) and are in great parts still untapped wilderness in the interiors. That makes it problematic to acquire wild caught specimens on a regular basis. And once a species has been diminishing in numbers in a captive population without coordinated breeding efforts... well, we know how that ends.

In Europe you see them coming in once in a while from Suriname via a dutch importer, but those imports are few and far inbetween (as far as research shows there can be years inbetween singular imports) and not enough to build a sufficiently diverse population here. Some french, dutch and german breeders seem to have them, which might explain the irregular availability of EU-tankbreds, but most often they are out of stock.

So I don't think they're unpopular. They simply got off the radar along the way.

 

[Apistoguy52]

Is there an unknown population nobody ever mentions?

I’d wager there are many. I see them on the Manaus lists as steindachneri Manacupuru collected (hippolyte), as steindachneri Rio Branco collected ( rupununi). There were a few fish collected this summer by Cardwell and Cordoso from the Branco that really made me scratch my head…In the short video, I could not tell if they were rupununi or steindachneri

 

[MacZ]

Those should be A. hippolyte and A. rupununi or cf.-species of those, then. They are from the Steindachneri-species-group but A. steindachneri proper are limited to the Guyanas and Venezuela.

 

[MacZ]

There were a few fish collected this summer by Cardwell and Cordoso from the Branco that really made me scratch my head…In the short video, I could not tell if they were rupununi or steindachneri

That's curious.

 

[Mike Wise]

I’d wager there are many. I see them on the Manaus lists as steindachneri Manacupuru collected (hippolyte), as steindachneri Rio Branco collected ( rupununi). There were a few fish collected this summer by Cardwell and Cordoso from the Branco that really made me scratch my head…In the short video, I could not tell if they were rupununi or steindachneri

Commercial list are just that, not necessarily accurate names. True A. steindachneri are only found in the Guianas and eastern Venezuela.

My guess is that Jeff collected A. sp. Rupunini Savanne (A137). This species occurs in the Rupununi Savanne where the headwaters of the Rio Branco (Brazil) and Essequibo River (Guyana) meet. Like you write they are hard to tell if they are rupununi or steindachneri. It has features of both.

Like Tom wrote, A. wickleri, a domestic strain of A. steindachneri, was an amazing fish. The 3.5-4.5"/9-12cm body of the male was sky blue (like A. panduro) with a lemon yellow head and bright red-orange trim on the unpaired fins. They were very mellow for their size, but excellent parents. I remember I once needed a tank for new fish so I removed a pair to a spare 5½ gallon/21L tank that also had some half grown Platys. The pair spawned in that tank, raised their fry successfully and didn't damage the platys. They were the first apisto species I ever kept and bred, and excellent beginner's apisto. Like so many fish from the 70s & 80s they disappeared from the hobby because they were so commonly available and many new species were arriving to replace them. This is one of many apistos I still wish I could find.

 

[Apistoguy52]

Yeah, I suppose conflating steindachneri (holotype), with its sister species was probably a little loose. But I’ll maintain the gist of my original post, people who make money importing and selling fish, don’t waste capital on marginally commercial species.

Mike, when was the last time you saw WC fish from the Guyanas imported to the states, I can’t recall seeing any in the last decade

 

[Apistomaster]

And which ones did you find interesting? Btw i've been very happy with my nannacara anomala; ok it isn't the prettiest fish but he seems to have a much wider range of behavior than the apisto i've owned.

Nannacara anomala have very interesting behaviors and dominant males in breeding dress are beautiful. They were a favorite study species among ethologists in the 1950's, if memory serves correctly. However, as a fish shop owner, getting them was not the same as selling them all. Truth be told, I was buying them for myself with the hopes of receiving something new to me. Keep in mind I was paying only between $0.20 to $0.40 each.
Ordering assorted dwarf cichlids was like opening a box of crackerjacks; I never knew what the prize would be until after opening the box. It was disappointing when a hundred assorted dwarf cichlids are all some common, back then, species.
The most likely received species I personally found to be more desirable were A. bitaeniata and A. agassizi.
Getting juveniles too small to immediately identify were primarily found among the Cardinal Tetra shipments but they were few in number. In that way I received A. cf. regani, A. gibbiceps and Apistogramma pertensis.

 

[apistobob]

I always thought they are a good beginner species as already described. While they usually don't have a lot of color, a full grown male displaying is quite spectacular. I found them to be about the easiest species to breed and they were capable of vewry large spawns - 200 not uncommon. This created great problems for me. I rasied a couple of spawns and what do you do with hundreds of young fish? After flooding every store within 200 miles, I ended up selling them for a nickle a piece to a store that sold them as feeders! This was in the mid 90's and the Internet didn't offer the same opportunities for sharing fish as we have today.

 

[Mike Wise]

Mike, when was the last time you saw WC fish from the Guyanas imported to the states, I can’t recall seeing any in the last decade

I haven't seen imports of fish to the US from Guyana for 20+ years. Pre-1990s, Guyana had a nationalist socialist one-party rule government that was 'suspicious' of US involvement in anything. Most trade was heavily restricted between the 2 countries, particularly any natural resources. Presently Guyana is a much more democratic multi-party country, but is still very protective of its natural resources, including wildlife, much like Ecuador.