Wild apistogramma agassizi

[squidz]

Hello everyone - Just picked up a group of wild caught Agassizi today. 1 male and 3 females. The male is quite the bully and very territorial. Hopefully they settle in and mellow out. Their colors are coming in slowly from when I saw them at the lfs. Only other tank mates are 2 ottos. I have them in a 30 gal cube. Thanks for having me! The male is pictured... The females are all hiding from him so haven't taken any good pics yet.

 

[squidz]

My question is, will they be ok with thee four of them together? There are essentially 4 cave-like areas but the male will do his rounds and go to each area and chase out the female then moves on to the next area. Should I have stuck with 2? My tank is heavily planted. TIA

 

[Apistoguy52]

In a best case scenario, I like Mike Wise’s 1’x1’ square for each fish given proper structure and cover. With that said, some males can be jerks and claim huge areas as “their” territory. In the case of the latter, it can get messy fast

 

[Ben Rhau]

The footprint on a 30-gal cube is OK for a pair, though a longer tank is preferable. Can you show a shot of the full tank? If the fish can see across the tank, then a couple of them could get killed soon if not moved/separated.

4 apistos are too many for these dimensions, in my opinion.

 

[squidz]

The females are fine. I see them schooling and exploring together, but that male is an *******... He basically has claimed the whole bottom half of the tank. There's a root cave on the left at the base of the wood. A stone cave area on the right rear. There's a cave area in the middle underneath the anubius, and lastly the ceramic cave front right. None of these areas are line of site. The male just cruises every area. I've had apistos before and never encountered this behaviour from a male. Thanks

 

[MacZ]

The male is no bully or anything, he's behaving absolutely normal for that species. Your tank is nicely scaped but not suitable for Apistogramma. At least not for a group that size. Males and females are territorial, the females less so in that they claim smaller territories. The tank lacks line-of-sight breaks. These fish don't need caves to evade each other, they need pieces of wood or rocks positioned in a way they divide bigger open areas into smaller chunks. Best is a piece of wood to break the sight from glass to glass the full 10-15cm above the substrate. If they can look through under it or around it in an angle it's not a sight break.

Speaking of which: the soil will make you problems. You have barely any plants that will profit from it so you it's possible you might get bacteria blooms.
Do you have a second or maybe even third tank to separate the fish? If not I'd think about returning all the females asap.

 

[squidz]

Took me a bit but I removed the male am relocated him to his own 20g. The females are out in the open now. I may swap tanks once I'm able to catch all the females. Thanks again for all the tips.

 

[anewbie]

Not sure if this is the norm but i have found this species to be a bit painfully aggressive both with their own species and other species.

 

[squidz]

Well i noticed an unexpected surprise today. One of my females spawned. The fry are wriggling on the bottom of her cave. They must've just hatched yesterday or today. I only checked when I noticed the female guarding her cave and chasing others away from the entrance. I've only had these guys for 2 weeks.

 

[MacZ]

Typical species survival strategy. New environment, maybe even not perfekt conditions, the next generation will adapt better than the parents.

 

[squidz]

Fry are free swimming!
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