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Abacaxis!


tolstoy21
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I got two pairs of these fish (Apistogramma Abacaxis) a few weeks ago and figured I'd have as hard a time spawning them as I am the Zebra Acara (sadly still no fry from those).

However, today, when I went to do the morning feeding rounds, to my surprise a very animated and overly protective female met me at the glass, flared out her fins and told me 'hey back off buster!'
 
Here's to hoping the male doesn't go all Saturn on them and that the tank params are to their liking.

 

In case anyone is interested in spawning this species, I have mine in the following params:

Ph: 4.5
Kh: 0
Gh: 0
Temp: 76-80f

There is a heavy layer of oak leaf litter in this tank, a box filter filled with peat pellets, and the water is RO.

I don't have a picture of the males yet, but this is what they look like, more or less (below pic is not mine; I snagged it from the interwebs).

image.jpeg.1242e9c6599584286cbc40cce9249313.jpeg

Edited by tolstoy21
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On 10/8/2022 at 7:38 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

(You should change your username to ‘ Apisto King’ !)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but honestly, I still feel a bit in the noob zone with breeding and have a lot more to learn (a lot more!). 

I've only been doing this maybe 3 years now? Started breeding fish with the advent of COVID and my transition to working from home full time (my day job is IT infrastructure development and engineering and it looks like I'll probably be working from home now until retirement). 

Right now, I think I'm decent at getting fish to reproduce (well they do all the work there, I just make the introductions and set the newlyweds up in a new house!). I'd really like to get deeper (more knowledge and experience) with developing and stabilizing lines, etc. 

If I were to gage where I am at this part of the hobby, it's still the first stage. 

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On 10/8/2022 at 1:58 PM, tolstoy21 said:

still feel a bit in the noob zone with breeding and have a lot more to learn (a lot more!). 

I’m told that if you stop learning, you stop living 😜 .

But if you feel that square one on the breeding spectrum is Apistogramma and co., then my guppy and BN pleco breeding is square 0.1 ! Though I did somehow breed some bettas and angels 😏

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On 10/8/2022 at 8:11 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

But if you feel that square one on the breeding spectrum is Apistogramma and co., then my guppy and BN pleco breeding is square 0.1 ! Though I did somehow breed some bettas and angels 😏

No, I don't feel that Apisto's are square one. My feeling is that purposefully and successfully getting fish to reproduce is square one.

The harder challenge, to me at least, is going to be working with successive generations, fixing desired traits, eliminating undesirable ones, keeping the lines genetically sound, keeping notes and tracking lineage, etc. 

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On 10/8/2022 at 9:52 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Well what would you call square one ? Java Moss?🙃

Java moss is in the same category as endlers -- the help, how do I stop them category?

I think what I mean by apistos not being square one, is that I would't classify any fish species is being square one (sure some are easier than others to get to spawn). What I meant was that 'spawning' is square one. That is, getting fish to reproduce.

All of this is just a silly way of explaining where I think I am in terms of this hobby and what I'd like to learn/focus on next. 

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  • 1 month later...

What is your tds; that is definitely one fish i am getting when i setup my low ph tank in May (background i'm getting out of this condo and will then have full control over my water). Most apisto are pretty easy to breed IF the water condition is correct the exception are those that are semi-paring and the female can be very picky like the nijjensi group. The other big head-ache is when folks put them in tanks too small with inappropriate structure and doesn't understand the violence pattern between male/female in polygamous species. 

 

There are only a few species that work well as a colony (if that is your objective); this species can be used to setup in a colony in a sufficiently large aquarium (I am setting up 48x48 aquarium)

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On 10/8/2022 at 7:26 AM, tolstoy21 said:

I got two pairs of these fish (Apistogramma Abacaxis) a few weeks ago and figured I'd have as hard a time spawning them as I am the Zebra Acara (sadly still no fry from those).

However, today, when I went to do the morning feeding rounds, to my surprise a very animated and overly protective female met me at the glass, flared out her fins and told me 'hey back off buster!'
 
Here's to hoping the male doesn't go all Saturn on them and that the tank params are to their liking.

 

In case anyone is interested in spawning this species, I have mine in the following params:

Ph: 4.5
Kh: 0
Gh: 0
Temp: 76-80f

There is a heavy layer of oak leaf litter in this tank, a box filter filled with peat pellets, and the water is RO.

I don't have a picture of the males yet, but this is what they look like, more or less (below pic is not mine; I snagged it from the interwebs).

image.jpeg.1242e9c6599584286cbc40cce9249313.jpeg

Ph 4.5!!!! That’s a lot of hydrogen!

On 10/8/2022 at 9:52 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Well what would you call square one ? Java Moss?🙃

I can’t even grow that!

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@newbie You know, I'm not sure what the TDS was at this time, below. hundred. If I were to guess, probably in the 45 to 60 range. I need to get better to tacking that as a measure of water quality. 

The water in the aquarium was 100% RO with oak leaf litter and Fluval peat pellets in a box filter, so the Ph stayed pretty consistently at 4.5.

I have been gradually acclimating the fry and parents to harder water and a higher Ph, so I can't get a good measure of it at this moment in time because it would not represent the breeding conditions.

I am ready to start round 2 with this pair and will get a measure of TDS if they spawn again. 

My last few spawns of apisto species have been very male heavy -- Abacaxis, Baenschi, Agassizii. Trying now to determine what factor exactly is influencing that the most, as I hate to see a batch of 30+ males and only 2 or 3 females. Cacatuodies is the only species giving me more or less even sex ratios.

I guess I just need to take more and more notes and give this time, as collecting data over a number of successive generations doesn't happen overnight.

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On 10/8/2022 at 4:26 AM, tolstoy21 said:

In case anyone is interested in spawning this species, I have mine in the following params:

Ph: 4.5
Kh: 0
Gh: 0
Temp: 76-80f

There is a heavy layer of oak leaf litter in this tank, a box filter filled with peat pellets, and the water is RO.

What a crazy beautiful fish!  Hoping for the best for you with the fry and the male.

That's crazy low PH. really interesting stuff, as always.  I haven't seen many Apisto's and every time I see you post one I'm always amazed. 

On 11/24/2022 at 2:17 PM, tolstoy21 said:

My last few spawns of apisto species have been very male heavy -- Abacaxis, Baenschi, Agassizii. Trying now to determine what factor exactly is influencing that the most, as I hate to see a batch of 30+ males and only 2 or 3 females. Cacatuodies is the only species giving me more or less even sex ratios.

I think usually it's temperature, no?

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@nabokovfan87 Yeah I believe it's primarily temperature as the main factor, then Ph as a secondary factor. However, I have read that the high/low threshold for male/female ratios may differ depending on specific species.

The only thing I can say anecdotally is that all the male-heavy spawns I've had recently all have been at or close to 78-79F. And that I've had female heavy Cacatuodies spawns at lower temps, but what temp exactly I cannot remember. This is why I'd like to get much better as  note taking notes as I go through successive spawns. 

I would like to get the ratios dialed in better is I can, with it being 40/60 male/female as I find it  a lot harder to find homes for individual males than it is for individual females, in my experience thus far.

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On 11/24/2022 at 3:37 PM, tolstoy21 said:

The only thing I can say anecdotally is that all the male-heavy spawns I've had recently all have been at or close to 78-79F. And that I've had female heavy Cacatuodies spawns at lower temps, but what temp exactly I cannot remember. This is why I'd like to get much better as  note taking notes as I go through successive spawns. 

*runs to go turn down the heater on the cory tank*

Very good point.  What kind of notes do you keep when you spawn something?  I wonder if @mountaintoppufferkeeper has journals and stuff too.

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I actually just started. Right now I am just taking down the basic environmental parameters -- GH, KH, PH, TDS, Temp, date etc. 

I'm also tracking parentage/lineage. I plan on getting a breakdown of sex ratios to the best of my ability when they are of an age to be sexed. 

I'm sure there are other data points to be considered, but this will be my starting point I guess. So far I have recorded information for Abacaxis and Benaschi, one spawn of each.

I keep everything in Excel, because this is the tool I'm familiar with and have used for graphing datasets for day-job-related kindof stuff.  I'm slowly tuning into an 'old guy' but I've never been a pencil-and-paper ledger kind of person.

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On 11/24/2022 at 4:17 PM, tolstoy21 said:

@newbie You know, I'm not sure what the TDS was at this time, below. hundred. If I were to guess, probably in the 45 to 60 range. I need to get better to tacking that as a measure of water quality. 

The water in the aquarium was 100% RO with oak leaf litter and Fluval peat pellets in a box filter, so the Ph stayed pretty consistently at 4.5.

I have been gradually acclimating the fry and parents to harder water and a higher Ph, so I can't get a good measure of it at this moment in time because it would not represent the breeding conditions.

I am ready to start round 2 with this pair and will get a measure of TDS if they spawn again. 

My last few spawns of apisto species have been very male heavy -- Abacaxis, Baenschi, Agassizii. Trying now to determine what factor exactly is influencing that the most, as I hate to see a batch of 30+ males and only 2 or 3 females. Cacatuodies is the only species giving me more or less even sex ratios.

I guess I just need to take more and more notes and give this time, as collecting data over a number of successive generations doesn't happen overnight.

Temp is suppose to weigh heavily in determining sex; in fact in the wild the biggest females will lay eggs at a different level than the smaller females (because they claim those territories). I forget if you want cooler or warmer water for more females. 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:58 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

*runs to go turn down the heater on the cory tank*

Very good point.  What kind of notes do you keep when you spawn something?  I wonder if @mountaintoppufferkeeper has journals and stuff too.

heat is not as much as an impact on cory; i believe this is more specific to genus apistogramma (though i would not be shocked if there are other fishes ....)

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On 11/24/2022 at 7:41 PM, anewbie said:

I forget if you want cooler or warmer water for more females. 

Ok editing this after misreading your post. 

Yeah I believe females are in the cooler range of the spectrum, but I do remember coming across something that suggested that  heavy spawn would be produced at the extreme ends of the temperate rage, warm and cool, with females being in the goldilocks zone in between.  But I could be remembering that incorrectly. I plan on diving into this subject over the next few weeks and seeing what I can find to read.

 

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Yes but it will take experimentation to find the exact range that works best for you with this species (I think); you might find something helpful but this is not the most common species. One problem is that in the wild with climate change there is some negative impact; but the fishes aren't total idiots and as i noted they can adjust their height a little when laying eggs - though a lot depends on the species and their exact habitat.

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@anewbie Yeah, I'm just going to experiment to try to determine what drives sex ratios in my specific fish room setup. But finding and reading any existing information is going to be the first place to start. There seems to be a decent amount on apistogramma.com on this topic.

@mountaintoppufferkeeper Yeah, as far as I know, temp is a determining factor in sex ratios in apistogramma species, at least according to what I've read. I don't believe its a determining factor for all fish species, but it does affect some in my understanding.

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@newbie 

I work for a research institution so I have access to a lot of scientific journals. After searching a bit this morning, I found that there have been a few good studies done on how Ph and Temp influences gender ratios in specific families of fish. The best study I could find on apistogramma covered 39 apistogramma species (including most of the popular ones in the aquarium hobby). 

For obvious reasons, I can't copy or upload the article here. The title is Environmental determination of sex in Apistogramma (Cichlidae) and two other freshwater fishes (Teleostei) from the Journal of Fish Biology (Romer and Beisenherz, 1996).  

But, I can summarize what I think is useful for hobbyists:

The sweet-spot for an equivalent male/female ratio seems to be a Ph of 5.5 and a temp of approximately 78-79F.  For the most part, higher temps resulted in more male offspring on average, and that resulting number was further impacted by Ph (lower Ph further increases the number of males).

To use A. Cacatuoides as an example:

  • At 78.8F the following Ph levels produced the following mean percentage of male offspring:  4.5: 80%, 5.5: 64%, 6.5: 43%
  • At Ph 5.5, the following temperatures produced the following mean percentage of male offspring:  73.4F: 19%, 78.8F: 62%, 84F: 83%

There were variances in how Temperature & Ph impacted male/female ratios for different apistogramma species, but the trend is fairly similar across all species.  In a few outliers, the data suggested that the percentage of males increased a tiny bit for the lower-end of the temperature spectrum (73.4F) when compared to the middle range (78.8F), but this uptick was minor.

The study also noted that there were no significant statistical differences in the data when sampled against F1 from wild caught specimens when compared to F12-F15 laboratory, inbred specimens.   

Anyway, that about sums it all up. Hopefully this is useful info to anyone also interested in the subject.

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From the articles i read it sounds like if your Abacaxis are wild caught you will have to leave the ph low; but if they are > f0 then you can try raising the ph. I havent' read the Romer article but my concern is that when looking beyond the species he has studied they come from different region which naturally have different water and temp so there is likely some error with regards to exact values for other species. It would be interesting to see what you learn from experimentation for this specific species (well I am interested since my intention is to populate an aquarium with them in May). I will be using pure ro water as well as peat but it is too early to judge how low of  a ph i will obtain as well as tds.

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Abacaxis was not one of the species covered in the research (nor was Baenschi). But the majority of the typical species available in the hobby available were. 

My abacaxis are F1 and they have spawned once for me at 4.5Ph and temp around 78.5F. 

I was looking at them again today. Seeing the adult female in non-breeding dress, I realized that perhaps my juveniles are still too young to sex (at least for me). In breeding dress the female did not show a full lateral line, and instead showed a distinct black spot. But seeing her again today, I realized that a non-breeding female exhibits a full lateral line. So, many of what I am assuming to be juvenile males may actually be females. I guess time will tell.

I am able to get maintain a  4.5 Ph using RO, peat and oak leaves.

I am slowly bringing the juvenile tank up to 6.4 over the course of the next week. I have another 2 adult males in 6.4Ph (dKh 0, dGh 8).  So far they appear healthy. They have been my canary in a coal mine to see how well these fish will tolerate my well water.  So far so good.

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On 11/25/2022 at 2:38 PM, anewbie said:

when looking beyond the species he has studied they come from different region which naturally have different water and temp

I can appreciate that concern, but a few of the species I am working with are covered, so for my needs, this is mostly decent, applicable information. 

For the one's not covered, I'll just go on the assumption that I can extend the findings of this research to my breeding efforts for those unrepresented species I'm working with, and if I find out its not applicable, I'll adjust and try again. 

 

On 11/25/2022 at 2:38 PM, anewbie said:

beyond the species he has studied they come from different region which naturally have different water and temp so there is likely some error with regards to exact values for other species

Well, I'm not sure I would categorize it as an 'error'. The article doesn't claim to be a universal representation for all apistogramma, it simply presents the research data for the 39 species specifically studied and make no claims about the ones is hasn't.  But yes, we can't assume the data would be the same for species in other regions, but it's a good base assumption to start from until one discovers differently through their own efforts.   

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