apistogramma agassizii tefe red back

[Josh333]

Have a pair of these agassizii and looks like the male isn't really interested in the female. Any ideas or tips in getting him interested in her?

[Guppysnail]

Those Apisto are absolutely gorgeous!
My caucatoides boy paid and still pays no attention to the females until they have a plump egg belly. The girls of mine initiate the flirting at that time. 
My suggestions would be give them time and feed a bit more food that includes spirulina and include live foods. Live BBS, grindal worms, white worms. Frozen mysis shrimp, BBS and others are also good. 
Just a very tiny touch of fry food like sera micron and hikari first bites 1x a week. I find when fish know there is food for the young to graze often signal parents it’s a good time to breed (got that trick from National Geographic special on wild habitats of fish)

Also give them a choice of caves so they can explore and chose their own. It’s part of the natural process for them to explore multiple locations in the wild to find the best spot. 

[anewbie]

Female will decide when it is time to breed - this presume male is mature - when the female is ready she will signal him and take him to a cave somewhere. In the worse case the male will attack the female to drive her out of his 'territory' until she is interested to breed but this 'attacking' highly depend upon individual fishes (though some species are more aggressive than others). If you notice this don't be alarm but make sure you have places where the female can hide and not be seen.

[Josh333]

On 6/26/2023 at 5:19 AM, Guppysnail said:

Those Apisto are absolutely gorgeous!
My caucatoides boy paid and still pays no attention to the females until they have a plump egg belly. The girls of mine initiate the flirting at that time. 
My suggestions would be give them time and feed a bit more food that includes spirulina and include live foods. Live BBS, grindal worms, white worms. Frozen mysis shrimp, BBS and others are also good. 
Just a very tiny touch of fry food like sera micron and hikari first bites 1x a week. I find when fish know there is food for the young to graze often signal parents it’s a good time to breed (got that trick from National Geographic special on wild habitats of fish)

Also give them a choice of caves so they can explore and chose their own. It’s part of the natural process for them to explore multiple locations in the wild to find the best spot. 

Yeah the female is the one flirting and I just added another cave last week. Just no luck with these guys. I do have a pair of tefe pearl blues and they tired to spawn 3 times already they just can't get the hang of it yet 

[tolstoy21]

That female is very pretty. Also, I love the tail pattern on the male, which I'm guessing is characteristic of tefe. 

I have a domestic line of agassizii that will pop this trait out on a few individuals every spawn.

[Josh333]

On 6/26/2023 at 1:09 PM, tolstoy21 said:

That female is very pretty. Also, I love the tail pattern on the male, which I'm guessing is characteristic of tefe. 

I have a domestic line of agassizii that will pop this trait out on a few individuals every spawn.

Yeah my tefe pearl blue male has the same type of pattern on his tail