20g apisto breeding tank?

[Mydonkeyfish]

I am working on my 75 gallon tetra tank and have an extra 20 gallon laying around. I love apistogramma cacatoides but have never had them before. How would i go about setting up a breeding tank for them?

 

Thanks so much!

[Struggle]

I would use quite a bit of plants, driftwood, a patch of moss a few caves/huts and sand type of substrate. Make sure to have a few areas where the fish can hide and get out of line of site if needed. When setting up the caves/huts point the openings away from each other so that it is an additional out of line of site.

[Fish Folk]

On 2/8/2022 at 4:03 PM, Mydonkeyfish said:

I am working on my 75 gallon tetra tank and have an extra 20 gallon laying around. I love apistogramma cacatoides but have never had them before. How would i go about setting up a breeding tank for them?

 

Thanks so much!

Awesome! I'd order a bunch of aquarium dried leaves and pods - Amazon botanicals online. Catappa Leaves, or even Oak Leaves are great for releasing tannins. I might go bare-bottom, or allow substrate. Apistos will spawn in a cave. I like building my own Coconut cave. Just make sure that the hole is pretty small. Females like small holes. I think you can find Apistos for sale online pretty easily too. Everyone likes the Cactuoide super red. But I prefer the Orange Flash.

Here's some Cacatuoides we kept a long time ago. My boy loved them...

We got some wild Bitaeniata from the Amazon (actually collected on one of Cory's trips). They had fry once for us, but Neon Tetras ate them 🤭

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Fish Folk

[Mydonkeyfish]

This is going to be my first time trying to breed fish! I have had guppies breed in a 55 gallon and i bought a dwarf crayfish not knowing it would be berried the next day. What plants do you recommend and do they like a lot or a little bit of flow?

[tolstoy21]

Everyone who has replied has good advice.

I keep mine at low to semi moderate flow. Water slightly acidic, java moss, java fern, leaf litter, driftwood, 76-78F.  All my females like the Coop apisto huts.

I keep a bare bottom tank (underside of tank bottom painted black) and allow the decomposed leaf litter to accumulate a bit so there’s a good population of infusoria and copepods and other tiny life for the fry when they emerge. I let the sides and back tank walls get pretty gunky with bio film and algae (except hair type algae cause that stuff gets out of control). My belief/observation is that the apistos like foraging through the mulm and litter that accumulates. However, I do keep the water column itself very very clean and fresh.

Not the most attractive setup, but it’s worked well for me. 

(My java ferns can get quite gunky and gross in this setup, but I rotate those in and out of a caridina shrimp tank to clean them up. They do an amazing job!)

Edited February 9, 2022 by tolstoy21