Apistogramma Breeding Tank

[anewbie]

fire red is not a species - so i have no clue what species  'fire red' represents. ph is irrelevant if the water has no kh but tds would be helpful. If you use 'pure' ro water you want a lot of biotanicals to stablize the water - stuff like captcha leaves though there are cheaper alternatives. Also over time they decay - leave them in the tank after they decay - don't feel like you need to vacuum them out during water changes as it is actually beneficial.

[Lennie]

On 6/28/2023 at 6:07 PM, anewbie said:

fire red is not a species - so i have no clue what species  'fire red' represents.

Dude I just wanted to text it in short,, I showed I mean agassizii fire reds 3 times above. You even said you would choose borelliis and macmasteriis over them above. I know fire red is not a species at this point :')

 

I use catappa leaf in all tanks of mine. I can surely add botanicals. I have banana plants in my garden which are never exposed to chemicals. Maybe a banana leaf too? I also have some alder cones, not a fan myself so sitting unused in general. I can also get walnut tree leaves and oak tree leaves. That's all I can get my hands on

[anewbie]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:30 AM, Lennie said:

Dude I just wanted to text it in short,, I showed I mean agassizii fire reds 3 times above. You even said you would choose borelliis and macmasteriis over them above. I know fire red is not a species at this point :')

 

I use catappa leaf in all tanks of mine. I can surely add botanicals. I have banana plants in my garden which are never exposed to chemicals. Maybe a banana leaf too? I also have some alder cones, not a fan myself so sitting unused in general. I can also get walnut tree leaves and oak tree leaves. That's all I can get my hands on

agassizii is shorter than fire red and that is the species; the term 'fire red' is not part of the species name - it is mumble jumble the seller added to the name to get you to pay more.

[TOtrees]

On 6/28/2023 at 11:32 AM, anewbie said:

'fire red' is [...] is mumble jumble the seller added to the name to get you to pay more.

um... no? 

Fire red is a variety of the agassizii species, one of many (including alenquer). All fire reds are agassiziis, but not all agassiziis are fire reds. Unless you're buying from people who don't understand naming and how to keep their lineages clean. 

[anewbie]

On 6/28/2023 at 12:29 PM, TOtrees said:

um... no? 

Fire red is a variety of the agassizii species, one of many (including alenquer). All fire reds are agassiziis, but not all agassiziis are fire reds. Unless you're buying from people who don't understand naming and how to keep their lineages clean. 

I'm not going to respond further other than to say you are mistaken. Fire red is an arbitrary name used to describe a particular colour morph that shows up in the trade. Further more fire red applies to many species of fishes as the seller decides to apply it when they sell the fish. It is true that not all Agassiz are red; some are blue; some are purple and some are red but genetically they are all the same fish. If you look on a seller website you might find 'fire red' stuck in front of a fish species; but then again I can sell you some wonderful fire red angelfishes and fire red guppies. 

 

Don't confuse a trade name with a species.

Edited June 28, 2023 by anewbie

[TOtrees]

@anewbie 

"Empty your cup" my friend. 

On 6/28/2023 at 1:37 PM, anewbie said:

It is true that not all Agassiz are red; some are blue; some are purple and some are red

True up to this point...

On 6/28/2023 at 1:37 PM, anewbie said:

genetically they are all the same fish

Wait, what? If you mean all Apisto agassiziis can probably breed with each other, yeah okay. But do you not agree that the Apisto agassizii fire red variety is distinct from the nominal Apisto agassiz or any of the many other varieties in the trade, ie it carries a specific and characteristic subset of the nominal species' genes? If you breed a male Apisto agassizii fire red with a female Apisto agassizii fire red you won't (can't) get a tefe or alenquer. We agree on that, right? 

[Lennie]

Update time! 🙂

I set up the 110x50x25 cm tank for a trio. I got 1m:2f Apistogramma Erythrura. 

I tried to block vision in the middle of the tank so I can use the caves in opposite corners. Ordered many different leaves after seeing how much they enjoyed the catappa leaf I introduced. Def gonna be adding lots of leaf litter once they come. 

Believe it or not, finding anything to DIY a cave, or a cichlid spawning cave from a aquarium/reptile store was super hard to find somehow. I finally managed to find some, Ordered 4 small caves all being different shapes to give the females some options. Waiting for them to arrive soon.

After the picture is taken, I added another sponge filter on another side as well. And for now, also added a D shaped pleco cave sitting in the fishroom unused in case it may make them feel comfier until their caves arrive.

The middle is full of lots of baby crypts, left side has echinodorus, right side has elodea and middle background is full of  Hygrophila polysperma Ceylon.

 

Even after I washed the sand for at least 10 times, it still made the tank blurry. 😢

The ph is 6.5. Normally is comes as 6.0 from the RO, but after aerating, it stays on 6.5. I keep the tank at 26C. 

I liked this info page about them: https://www.tomc.no/fish.aspx?fishIndexID=2411&gruppeID=1

 

Question: They seem to be shy eaters. They tend to miss food pieces, and act shy in general overall. The tank is shallow and I don't fully fill it as it has no lid. So top dwellers as dither would not make any sense in this setup, also they wouldn't be cleaning up missed food pieces well. I don't want them be potentially competed for food, I just want it to be cleaned up if missed.

I have some pygmy cories in one of my display tanks. Do you guys think they would do well in this tank with an apisto breeding project? They are tiny afterall, and would have lots of space to swim away if a female gets territorial. What do you think? Would they chase them to death?

 

Any suggestions are welcomed! 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Lennie

[anewbie]

They might get beat up (killed) once the a. Erythrura start breeding. Some species are more shy than others - my D50 show no shyness in both male and female; but my a. pucallpaensis have remained shy after 18 months (well just the male - the female are not); It can also make a difference if they are tanked raised or wc. You should check your water tds also be aware that trifasciata lean on the aggressive side of things at time.

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by anewbie

[Lennie]

On 7/7/2023 at 2:20 AM, anewbie said:

They might get beat up (killed) once the a. Erythrura start breeding. Some species are more shy than others - my D50 show no shyness in both male and female; but my a. pucallpaensis have remained shy after 18 months (well just the male - the female are not); It can also make a difference if they are tanked raised or wc. You should check your water tds also be aware that trifasciata lean on the aggressive side of things at time.

 

👍🏻 thanks

the guy I got them from is a very well reputable apisto breeder with 85 tanks here. He was very nice and helpful.

however these fish are not his own. He instead got these imported from the Czech Republic to start another breeding project. He said he has no space in case they breed and he would not be able to take care of fry properly and it was an impulsive buy when he got them. So now he was rehoming these. He has been keeping them in a ph around 6,5-7 he said.

In terms of aggression, the male treats the females quite nice for now and also did in his tank for 4 months, but if he was left in the bag he was shipped in a bit more, I bet he would find a way to tear the bag up. He was even attacking the bag lol. So yes, if it was a betta, I would consider it as an aggressive one, and this male seems aggressive to me too in this regard. But the tank is big enough with lots of vision blocks, especially after all plants grow in the middle, so I think it should be fine

I dunno my tds after dosing the tank with a few scoops of gh+ as I use RO, but my RO reads 24-25 the last time I got it tested. I can get a tds meter easily but calibration liquids are very hard to come by so quite expensive. A wrong reading tds meter can lead to worse than good I think. I usually have the water guy test stuff when he comes over for maintenance:D 

I better skip pygmy cories then. @Guppysnail also suggested me not to keep them together so I was leaning towards not keeping them together already.

 

If anything comes to your mind that may work as a cleanup crew please let me know. I have lots of juvenile endlers that way work as dither maybe?  Just thinking out loud. It just scares me that apistos may get outcompeted by them for food

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Lennie

[Guppysnail]

My Apisto kids are just as bad at catching food. They miss a lot even if I put one pellet at a time. They graze off the substrate though so I’ve not had much issue with leftover food.