PGH Jeremy

Yes. Here she is now.

The larger/brighter one is the one that died. The one that is left is the one that is guarding the fry, so it must be a female since the eggs had to come from one of them. I’m not sure it was a good idea to have a M/F pair in a 30 g with some other fish, but I think for now things might be okay. With a little luck, I’ll have some young A. hongsloi to sell in a bit.

I’m no expert on fish breeding. I’m sure inbreeding would be an issue eventually. Yeah I was bummed about the male. I read different things on apisto aggression and thought I might be able to handle a pair with some tetras/rasboras in my 30g. The female Apisto barely cares about the harlequin rasboras because they are up in the water column. If she killed the otos, it’s because they are down on the bottom where she and the fry are.

I thought I’d post an update. About a week and a half ago, my male A. hongsloi died. I was away on a trip and my wife said he seemed fine the day before. Coincidentally, I was having a green “hair” algae breakout. So I went and bought 4 Otocinclus and a couple Amano shrimp. I noticed the female A. honsloi was mildly protecting and spending time in a large driftwood crevis that I couldn’t see in. The morning after adding my Otos, 2 were dead near her lair. I thought she might be responsible but she really wasn’t very aggressive during the day. Today, I saw her in the opposite back corner acting protective and realized there is a swarm of free-swimming fry there. So I’m wondering if she could have killed the male A. hongsloi and 2 otos. The remaining 2 otos are fine after almost a week. Certainly the first 2 months of my aquarium have been eventful. She chases the otos and my 4 harlequin rasboras away, but not too far or aggressively. I’m open to any advice on care of the fry. I’ve been giving some finely ground (mortar & pestle) Hikari micro wafers using a syringe to deliver a “cloud” near the fry. I tried to post a video clip but it seems that isn’t possible here. Thanks!

Interestingly, I added two half-grown Apistogramna hongsloi to my aquarium and my harlequin rasboras immediately stopped their breeding activity and became less active. The apistos are paying no attention to the rasboras at all, but just their presence is enough. Regarding soft water, my hardness is about 125 ppm, KH runs about 40 ppm, pH is about 6.6. I have a a couple of large driftwood pieces giving off tannins too (and I think pulling the KH and pH down).

Thanks for the cautionary note. So far, everything is peaceful. The male A. hongsloi often tries to display for the female when their paths cross, but she’s ignoring him completely. He does not chase after her. Hopefully things remain peaceful - they aren’t even fully grown yet.

Hey everyone. I went to my LFS today looking to get a shoal of 10 or so cardinal tetras and a pair of blue rams, for my month-old 30 gallon, only to discover that their cardinals tank was in quarantine and they were down to one blue ram. So I had to choose between going home empty handed (nope!), getting gold rams, or pick from 3 Apistogramma species. I ended up getting a pair of A. hongsloi which I’m pretty excited about. I’d be interested in anyone’s experiences with these.

Thanks Those are actually baskets sitting on shelves. On the left side, behind the door, is my canister filter and I added an air pump. I mounted a 6 outlet power strip to the inside here so all the power cords for everything run behind the aquarium and into the stand (staying out of sight).

Hi everyone. I am getting back into the hobby after a ~30 year break. That’s right, 30. I had aquariums galore as a kid and teenager, last one was in my college dorm room… until I bought a used 30 gallon recently for placement in my home office. After deciding I should build my own stand (I’m prone to time consuming DIY projects - see the photo), resealing the aquarium, trying to get driftwood waterlogged for a couple months then deciding to cut it in two and mount it to siltstone mini-slabs from my local creek, and doing tons of research, my aquarium has been up and running for a couple of weeks. My local store steered me to a half dozen harlequin rasboras as starters when I also bought some plants. Today I’m off to get my true targets - about 10 cardinal tetras and a couple/few juvenile blue rams.

First forum post alert! Since I’ve had my 30 gallon set up for all of 2 weeks with only a few “starter” harlequin rasboras, I do not have a lot to choose from. However, the rasboras, despite being half their adult size, almost immediately got into breeding behavior, which is pretty interesting. They invert themselves under a plant leaf (Ludwigia ovalis) and vibrate their bodies, and do this regularly throughout the day.