Apistogramma Bitaeniata - Teach me your ways

[Crabby]

Hey!

As the title of this thread suggests, I’m looking for any and all hobbyist information about Apistogramma Bitaeniata. I’m an experienced breeder of A. Nijsseni, looking at getting into another apisto species to breed, and I’m thinking Bitaeniata might be the one.

I’m looking for some general information like what would you recommend as a minimum tank size, general water parameters, and then some more specific stuff like tips for breeding, observations on temperament, amount of eggs in a spawn, hatch rate, ideal cave type & size, ideal substrate, all that good stuff that only someone experienced will know.

Thanks in advance!

[Fish Folk]

Awesome! We got 4x wild-caught A. Bitaeniata a few years ago at our club auction from Peru (Project Amazonas trip). 2x males, 2x females.

We brought them home, put them in a 20-long. The dominant male spawned a couple times. Once with a female on the underside of a piece of wood. Another time in a coconut hut we made.

Female brought out a small batch of 12-20x fry from the hut, but neon tetras (curse them!) gobbled up the F1 fry.

Here’s a video my son made…

As you can see from the video, we didn’t do too much out of the ordinary with the water. Our city / tap water is soft (3-drops KH) and pH settles between 7.5-7.8.

If I were doing this all over, I’d load the tank up with Catappa leaf litter and botanicals, and add tint with Rooibos tea bags.

I would always provide 2x cave / hut options. CoOp sells one that’s gotten excellent reviews.

Apistos may change appearance depending on your color choice of substrate. They also change colors some with age. Here’s our long-in-the-tooth A. Bitaeniata male nearing the end…

I’d buy a tank-bred trio, load up on leaf litter, get dither fish with tiny mouths if you want dithers (e.g. pencil fish). Feed them quality live and frozen foods. Change water at least weekly. Use some rain-water (or ground water) in your water change if they don’t do anything after a few months.

Here’s my son explaining how we used ground water from our sump after a big rain to trigger our Laetacara Araguaiae to spawn…

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Fish Folk

[anewbie]

On 3/7/2022 at 7:36 AM, Fish Folk said:

Awesome! We got 4x wild-caught A. Bitaeniata a few years ago at our club auction from Peru (Project Amazonas trip). 2x males, 2x females.

We brought them home, put them in a 20-long. The dominant male spawned a couple times. Once with a female on the underside of a piece of wood. Another time in a coconut hut we made.

Female brought out a small batch of 12-20x fry from the hut, but neon tetras (curse them!) gobbled up the F1 fry.

Here’s a video my son made…

As you can see from the video, we didn’t do too much out of the ordinary with the water. Our city / tap water is soft (3-drops KH) and pH settles between 7.5-7.8.

If I were doing this all over, I’d load the tank up with Catappa leaf litter and botanicals, and add tint with Rooibos tea bags.

I would always provide 2x cave / hut options. CoOp sells one that’s gotten excellent reviews.

Apistos may change appearance depending on your color choice of substrate. They also change colors some with age. Here’s our long-in-the-tooth A. Bitaeniata male nearing the end…

I’d buy a tank-bred trio, load up on leaf litter, get dither fish with tiny mouths if you want dithers (e.g. pencil fish). Feed them quality live and frozen foods. Change water at least weekly. Use some rain-water (or ground water) in your water change if they don’t do anything after a few months.

Here’s my son explaining how we used ground water from our sump after a big rain to trigger our Laetacara Araguaiae to spawn…

 

So if they bred in kh 3; ph 7.5 water then these are clearly a white water fish. Do you know off hand your tds? I know you breed rams so unless you are using ro to thin the water then your tds is probably below 100.

[Fish Folk]

On 3/7/2022 at 9:22 AM, anewbie said:

So if they bred in kh 3; ph 7.5 water then these are clearly a white water fish. Do you know off hand your tds? I know you breed rams so unless you are using ro to thin the water then your tds is probably below 100.

I don’t know our TDS. But my suggestion would be to try breeding the fish without getting too caught up in chemistry.

[anewbie]

On 3/7/2022 at 8:33 AM, Fish Folk said:

I don’t know our TDS. But my suggestion would be to try breeding the fish without getting too caught up in chemistry.

I was mostly curios there are a lot of species of apistogramma that require ph below 6.7; and some below 6 with tds below 30. From my own experience rams will breed at tds 120 but at 150 it is nearly impossible and below 80 is better. Mind you they will go through the motion in bad water but the eggs won't hatch.

Edited March 7, 2022 by anewbie

[Crabby]

On 3/8/2022 at 1:22 AM, anewbie said:

So if they bred in kh 3; ph 7.5 water then these are clearly a white water fish. Do you know off hand your tds? I know you breed rams so unless you are using ro to thin the water then your tds is probably below 100.

I was advised by someone else on a different forum that they’re actually blackwater and the eggs will hatch more successfully with a lower pH and softer water, like below 6 pH. It’s cool to see the range. I’ve bred Nijsseni before in a pH of 5.5 or lower, and heard stories from others of breeding in a pH above 7.

Dustin’s Fish Tanks talks in a video about collecting bitaeniata in water that “looked like chocolate milk”.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Crabby

[anewbie]

On 3/7/2022 at 1:25 PM, Crabby said:

I was advised by someone else on a different forum that they’re actually blackwater and the eggs will hatch more successfully with a lower pH and softer water, like below 6 pH. It’s cool to see the range. I’ve bred Nijsseni before in a pH of 5.5 or lower, and heard stories from others of breeding in a pH above 7.

Dustin’s Fish Tanks talks in a video about collecting bitaeniata in water that “looked like chocolate milk”.

Nijsseni eggs would not hatch in my tap water of ph 7 kh 3 and tds 120. I know they breed readily in upper 6 like 6.6 but tds and kh have an impact. kh is related to ph but it is not 1:1 as sometime the water has additive to raise the ph. I don't buy that bitaeniata require blackwater for breeding if @Fish Folkcan hatch the eggs with kh 3 and ph 7.5. Many apisto are collected in blackwater or near blackwater but also can be found in clear or white water (cockatoo and borelli are two that are sometime found in the wild in white water but are also frequently found in balckwater. bitaeniata is not a species of apisto i've previously looked at.

Edited March 7, 2022 by anewbie