Apistogramma Borellii breeding project

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Caol Ila
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Interesting behaviours! This is why people like breeding cichlids.

Does my breeding tank need more plants and leaf litter? There's quite a lot of logs and plants and leaves in the tank in the video?
Caol Ila
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OH and I discussed the possibility of making our 100L into the breeding tank instead. It currently has seven cherry barbs, a male Bolivian ram, and a clown pleco. The pleco has to stay where he is, but the ram could go into the 125L, and the barbs into the 60L. However, I'm not sure 100L is large enough for a harem of three apistos (and the plec), and if I had to move one or two apistos for any reason, they would have nowhere to go. I don't think the ram would share territory with another cichlid, and the big 240L isn't an option as it's pretty well stocked and has the current of a fast river.

If I stick with plan A, apistos can shift in and out of the 125L without any hassle to anyone else.
Caol Ila
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One of the females has started guarding a cave in the 125. A bit premature and pointless, but I guess it means they're ready.
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Caol Ila wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:00 pm Does my breeding tank need more plants and leaf litter?
Probably not - though if more leaves were available, they wouldn't go amiss.

I remember reading the report of a collection trip, somewhere in the Amazon. Floating around in their boat in a shallow stream, the stream bed was thick with sunken leaves. One of the expedition's number leant over and grabbed a handful. Apparently it was teeming with Apistogramma. As I also read (can't remember where) : as long as a female Apisto has a leaf to defend, she'll be happy!

I've recently acquired a paid of Apistos, and have another in the offing. It's been a while since I kept any. I dutifully set up the tank as you have done, paying attention to providing lots of hidey-holes etc. I put a few oak leaves in as a start to an eventual layer of leaf-litter ... and, wouldn't you know? The female immediately laid claim, ignoring all my efforts almost completely! Mind you, they are wild-caught so maybe it was a home-from-home job, or something!
Caol Ila
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With my sponge now sitting in my big tank for over two weeks, I decided it was time to get the breeding tank underway. I caught two females and put them in the breeding tank. They were not pleased. They were not easy to catch, and I have two Hypancistrus plecos in the 125L tank, who I didn't want to turf out of their hiding places in order to make it easier to catch apistos. Eventually, they were caught. And they've been hiding ever since. Sorry, fishies. I felt a bit bad. But today, I've bought them some dwarf pencilfish as dithers. Hopefully, once everyone settles, the apistos will reappear and start acting normal.

The lone female in the 125 has been frantically swimming about, like she's looking for her pals. Can they cope with being lone fish in a community tank?
Caol Ila
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The two apistos in the breeding tank have been spotted. They are starting to venture out of their hiding places. Pencilfish have settled nicely. They seem like chilled out wee things. Meanwhile, the single female in the community tank continues to do a lot of glass surfing. I'm not sure what to do about that.
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Are the two in your breeding tank a pair then? Perhaps your lone female had already paired up, if one of the two is a male? @Gingerlove05 might be able to shed a bit more light on this, as he raised three little ones thinking they were all females until one of them developed into his current male.
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Gingerlove05
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Any pics of them @Caol Ila?
It will likely be because the three were together and now theres just one on their own. They are ok on yheir own, might take them a little bit to settle back in after the hierarchy change.
Wait until they breed, they’re generally not so chilled out then ;)
My male and female know that if they hang on one side of each of my tanks they can see each other (when we take the divider/block down), so i have seen them going up and down the glass then.
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My three are definitely females. There are pics on my first post in this thread. The single one in the community tank has been a lot more settled today. The two in the breeding tank have been out and about a bit more and having little spats. I guess they're trying to work out territory in the new tank. Still no male. LFS says they can get me one in the next few weeks.
Caol Ila
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I haven't updated this thread for a while because the project seemed to be on hold. I had bought a very young, juvenile male from the LFS, and he died within a couple weeks. LFS said they had problems with that batch, so I don't know if it was a weak fish, or if the females were too aggressive and stressed him out. A couple months later, one female borrellii and two pencilfish suddenly keeled over. It turned out the tank's resident snail had died, but it was out of sight behind the sponge filter and looked like had been there for some time. It probably caused an ammonia spike.

I moved the lone female that was in the 125L tank into the 60L tank. I was converting the 125 into a Hypancistrus tank anyway (it now houses four Hypancistrus furunculus), and that female wasn't very happy. Everyone told me apistogramma do alright on their own, but this one missed that memo. She'd been doing lots of glass surfing, ever since I moved her two friends out. Once she was reunited with her pal in the 60, she settled.

But I still had no male and had given up trying, as fish shops only seemed to be selling very small juveniles. Then, last week, I went to the nearest Maidenhead to buy some shrimp for another tank, and I was idly eyeing up the fish tanks (as you do), and they had a tankful of A. borellii. Still juveniles, but one of the males was not far off the size of my adult females. Hoping he was big enough to not be bullied, I snapped him up.

So far, everyone seems to be getting on. Some chasing, but nothing excessive so far. The male has some growing to do and I'm hoping he withstands the females until then.
Last edited by Caol Ila on Mon Sep 28, 2020 13:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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