Apistopolooza (Hongsloi and Abacaxis)

[jwcarlson]

On 11/3/2023 at 1:57 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

I can smell Apisto fry soon….🫠

I'm not getting my hopes, the hongsloi have been do this for months without spawning again. 

[jwcarlson]

Looking for ideas/thoughts on my Hongsloi pair.  Yesterday the male turned pretty nasty.  

They seem "lovey-dovey" basically always.  Unless the female is (what I believe) trying hard to get him into her cave.  He basically does slow loops around the tank taking pecks and stuff and seeming fairly uninterested.  When he gets to her cave she'll come out and tail wag and tip/roll slowly slipping into a cave.  And he almost always just completely ignores her other than he'll usually do a little display and occasionally return tail waving.  This goes on basically as long as I observe.  She seems to want to get him into this tiny little cave and he cannot fit.  He will go in and out of the bigger cave (and she occasionally goes in there, sometimes together).  And sometimes he'll seem to try to get her into that bigger cave kind of edging her that way.  Awhile back I removed the smaller cave and the male seemed to get more aggressive.  So I put it back.  Yesterday, I pulled that cave again because of their behavior (described above).  

Additionally, yesterday I rehomed three extra males.  They were living in a 55 a couple of feet away from the 29 that this pair shares.  I never saw any behavior that would suggest that the males "saw" or acknowledged each other ever.  But will put that out there as possibly an aggravating factor.  

So the sequence of events just to be clear.  I pulled the males around 11 AM and went to a local fish swap.  I didn't notice anything off in the morning with the pair, but I can't say that I spent much time looking.  It's been business as usual for these two for months.  We got back from the swap around 2 or 3 PM, I'd purchased a couple of larger caves and I replaced the little one with a new one then.  I didn't see the female when I did this other than checking that she wasn't in the small cave when I removed it.  Tank lights come on around 4 and by the time I went down to feed everything it was probably 6 PM and the male was heavily harassing the female and he had bitten off a lot of the rear of her dorsal fin.  So I put her small cave back in and killed the tank lights (but the other tanks in the room provide quite a bit of ambient lighting).  Eventually she settled into the small cave.  This morning I removed the male and put him in a hang-on breeder box.  Tonight I'm going to do some relocation and will put him in a 10 gallon by himself.

 

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I don't know if I am misreading their behavior?  The previous time when I removed the smaller cave I thought that the aggression might have been because she wasn't ready for breeding, but their behavior has seemed like "we're going to spawn" based on previous observation and what I've read.  To be clear, this pair has never raised fry successfully, but have been in my care for about 10 months and in the first six months or so, spawned several times together.  Some of that saga can be seen previously in the thread.  Perhaps they were not sexually mature previously?  Other than light chasing the male has never been anything near aggressive to her outside of me removing that cave a few weeks ago.  I was really kind of shocked to see.  Thinking more about this now, I wonder if I'm removing her favorite cave and turning off her desire to spawn and that's triggering the male to drive her from his territory?  She's never seemed tied to a cave before, in fact she spawned in two separate locations once previously... partially in a hole in the driftwood and then finishing in a cave.  The male seems to want to spawn in a cave that he can enter.

 

I'm not sure what I'm really asking here other than... reporting, I guess.  Video below is the last one I have of them.  This more/less exact sequence would go on for... hours every couple of minutes.  The variations of this would be him seeming to try to get her to go into the other cave or him totally snubbing her and just pecking at sand nearby to eat something and just cruising by.  Am I confusing her behavior?  To me it looks like she's desperately trying to get him to go in the cave with her.  She'll go so far as to turn almost completely upside down like she's going in to do a pass of egg laying.

Sorry about the 'dirty' glass, I only scrape it off once every few water changes.  

 

My current plan is to keep him out of the tank.  She'll have the place to herself until she recovers and I can treat whatever damage might be done.  I didn't want to disturb her this morning trying to see what she looked like, but she was out briefly before I removed the male, but she's all clamped up and hiding so I didn't really see her.  I don't plan on putting this male back in with her.  I have another male in "reserve" in a community tank.  I think he'll get the next whack at breeding.  Initially I thought this female was "crazy", but over the last few months this male just doesn't seem... "in" to her at all and to me it really appears to be unidirectional as (unless I am mistaken) the female seems eager to breed to me.  Thoughts?

Edited November 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Guppysnail]

I’m am in no way an expert I’m still new to Apisto. When my girls roll to the side like that it means no go away. Whether it’s in guarding fry or I’m not interested in lovey dovey stuff. 
 

When my caucatoides and borellii girls are ready there is no side roll it’s all fluffy fins and body rubs. 
 

The trifasciatus are to young and I see the girls do that exact thing. 
 

If they were my fish I would interpret that scene as not tonight honey I have a headache. And him shrugging and going out to watch football instead. 🤷‍♀️

When mine interact like that I never seen spawning. Taking away her little cave he cannot get in may have taken away her ability to completely get away from him so he did not want to take no for an answer or tried driving her out for a girl who is ready like you suggested. 

[jwcarlson]

Interesting, I'll have to go look at their previous spawns because this seems to look really similar, but honestly there's so many subtle differences that it's tough to know since I don't speak the language!  The part the doesn't make sense (and I cut it from the video) is she is hidden in the cave until he rounds the corner and then she comes out and does this.  And then she's back in the cave until he is back for the next lap.  Again, I don't know all the queues.  I've certainly seen belly rolling in relation to her trying to curb aggression and it's usually not happening anywhere near a cave and doesn't look so... inviting?  Usually, she's dark and she presents more vertically and will rotate to show her belly that way.

I thought (or read or watched) that the rolling and going into a cave is a sign of spawning desire or openess.  

Fully agree that I'm a lummox and should never have removed her cave either way though!  She's got other places to escape him, but maybe she forgot about them! 🤪

Here's an actual spawn from eight months ago, for what it's worth:

Certainly, some differences here, particularly her fin/fin twitching vs just rolling into the cave.  Learning (hopefully)!  Thanks for you input, @Guppysnail!  I do wonder how different each individual species might be.

[anewbie]

Honglosi like most species of apistogramma are loosely polygamous which means that the male at any time might try to drive away a female not interested in breeding. They are not as aggressive as some other species in this before like trifs but it does happen. The nijjensi complex is the major group of fish that are more pair forming but pairs do break up. There are other species that are sort of pair forming but i forget which ones out side the nijjensi complex. There are a lot of interesting species in the nijjensi complex that are quite handsome but these mostly require relatively soft water to have any chance of successful breeding which makes them a bit less popular. 

There are several but the only dwarf cichild i know off the top of my head that pair bond for life are keyholes - a wonderful dwarf cichlid that are very curious and relatively smart.

[jwcarlson]

Male is out of the attached breeder box and into a ten gallon jail cell.  Female was out and ate some food.   Wound on rear of the dorsal fin looks fuzzy, but maybe just ragged.  I will probably drop some salt in tomorrow afternoon if it doesn't look any better.  She seemed happy to see me, so hopefully nothing is permanently damaged.

 

@anewbie I really think I blew it by removing her only escape from him he had been totally fine being rejected as long as she hid, but when I took that away I set off a spiral, I think.  And that fits perfectly in with the what you're describing of driving her away.  I will give her a break and will try again in some time with my other male.  I think only getting one female and five males really hamstrung my ability to learn.  I do well with being able to compare, which is why I got three pairs to begin with... oh well!  I do still have the abacaxis and the female has been very cave oriented recently.  I am nervous with soft water as my only experience is extremely hard water and I am taking my time lowering pH.  And they haven't spawned yet to the best of my knowledge.  I have time. 😉

[jwcarlson]

Healing up pretty good, I am going to feed her up for awhile and put my "spare" male in at some point.  I am not sure how long to wait, though.  Or what signs to look for when she's solo.  

 

[jwcarlson]

This morning little lady had a pile of sand outside of her cave.  She's been eating well and seems to be plumping up.  Last night it seemed like she came over and flared at the glass when I fed her as well.  I've been down there quite a bit, but working on everything else as it's just her in there I've not been paying a ton of attention to her other than her fins seem all healed up and she's eating.  I'll have to pay a little more attention to see if she's "nesting".  But I think the sand is a good sign.   

[jwcarlson]

Well shoot.  Noticed some scales damaged/missing on the male abacaxis a couple of days ago.  Nothing major, but certainly something to watch.  It was worse that afternoon, so I netted him out into a hang on box with a cave for him to chill out in for a bit.  

When netting him out, I noticed that the female looked a lot like a male and every time I observe "her" now since removing the male she looks more like a he.  I'm hoping that I'm just gun-shy from having 5 of 6 Hongsloi being males, but I don't think it's looking good! haha  Now, I know that this apisto isn't wildly popular, but I cannot find a picture of a female with a purple chin like this one is sporting. 

Also added a couple spixi snails to the tank... how in the world does one combat hydra in a tank fed with lots of BBS. 

"female" today:

The male some months ago:

I am fairly confident that I haven't confused them for each other.  I've checked the male in the box a few times and he is absolutely bigger than the one in the main tank.  He's not colored up at all because he's stressed out, but the coloring doesn't look female at all.

[jwcarlson]

Giving a different male a whack at this head case female.  They've been in caves together a bunch and it's been five minutes.

[jwcarlson]

Good action with the hongloi pair tonight.  She is in or around the cave only.  When he comes over she seems receptive and there's a little rubbing up on each other and she's fluttering her fins not diving into the cave.  They were in this cave together at least a bit yesterday.

[TheSwissAquarist]

Fingers crossed 🤞!

[jwcarlson]

She hasn't left the cave entrance and the male is just drifting around leaving her alone.

[jwcarlson]

Well, she's back out and wagging her tail at the male this morning.  She's driving me nuts. 😄  I'm thinking about dumping a garbage bag of oak leaves in there and seeing how they look in June. 🤣

[jwcarlson]

Confirmed that both abacaxis were males.  Whatever occured, both ended up injured.  The bigger one died several days later.  This one has been coloring up, his wound healing.

 

The hongsloi pair continue their shenanigansm. They are at least getting along.  I popped in their first daphnia, she hunted it, mouthed it, and gave up.  It was sitting on her head, but I didn't get a picture. It's the bigger blurry spot to then left of the suction cup.  The male doesn't seem to care that it's there.

 

My seed shrimp colony has lots in it, so I seeded their tank with probably a hundred or so of those.  Now for the garbage bag of oak leaves. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

We'll have to imagine how pretty their babies would be though, I think. 🤭

[jwcarlson]

Added six beckford pencilfish today.  Male has been keeping himself between her cave and the pencils.  Lady has been in the cave for a day or two.  She pokes her head out occasionally.  Terrible photo, but it does show off the hydra well. Haha