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Apistogramma Tucururi

Borelliiguy

Member
Messages
52
I fell in love with this species!

You know how it is, you see an apisto species and think "My goodness! That would be a great gorgeous specimen to keep" but info on this species is proving difficult to come by. Has anyone kept this species? What size does it get to? Would you consider it "Adult" cherry size shrimp safe?

Any and all info you can give me with this one I'd really appreciate.
 

regani

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
429
Location
Brisbane, Australia
They are indeed a very nice looking apisto. I have kept them a while ago and they have spawned for me at pH about 5.8 and a conductivity of 120 microS
The major problem I had was aggression. I have only 2ft breeding tanks and despite a lot of plants and driftwood and several attempts to rearrange the tank the male finally managed to kill the female.
I did get one spawn out of them but encountered similar problems with the fry in the growout tank once they grew to about an inch.
If you want to keep them I would definitely recommend a larger tank, probably 4ft long.
 

MickeM

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
441
Location
STOCKHOLM , SWEDEN
Hi Borelliiguy, regani +all..

I have kept A. tucurui.. a few years ago..
My fishes got fry in my 115x40x40 (cm) tank. I never felt that they were more aggressive than any other Apisto..
They grew to a size of approx. 5-6cm. The pH must have been 6.5-7 , and after a month with weekly waterchanges of 20% they spawned sucessfully..

I don`t know how they will work along with your shrimps, but if the shrimps have a large size (2-4cm) when you put small Apistos(2cm) in you might fix it?? ( I keep Crystal Red Shrimps with Apisto juveniles that way!)

Shrimps in nature are (IMO!!) food to many, many other animals/fishes, and since Apistos like to pick and taste the most things that moves...,
your shrimps will be in more or less danger...!!
At least when they grow and have to change their body cover/armor...
And also.. I think that another factor is the amount of food you normaly feed your Apistos with..
Lots of food - less need to "hunt" food!! Or it might just become a habit/normality not to eat other things than the food we serve them..?

One more thing .. if you let the shrimps get in the tank at first..they will have an advantage of the Apistos that are coming in later on.. (knowing/having located were to find the hidingplaces/"safe spots").

A friend of mine kept <200 Crystal Red Shrimps in a 200x60x60cm planted tank (he started with 10...).
He got tired of these.. and bought 8-10 Discus fishes (Symphysodon)..
They hunted and ate the shrimps every morning when he turned on the light!!.. for a month or so!!
I guess the red shrimps are more "protected" during darkness.. (The red colour became black(??) or hard to detect.., in the/to the eyes of the Discus fishes??)

Here are some old pics of my A.tucurui... :)

Cheers
Micke
 

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Borelliiguy

Member
Messages
52
Micke I really appreciate the info here. It's a phenomenal write up and the fact that you took the time to share that info is again, something I appreciate.

I'm not sure how to grade the body size. 5-6cm is also the size of a borellii and I consider them completely shrimp safe. I guess it's down to the body type because for me a hongsloi, Cac, and macmasteri are only slightly larger in body length but are broad "big bodied" and shrimp assasins...

Yet a basenchi Inka is a species I've kept which is narrow bodied and so "adult" cherry shrimp safe.

I'm not sure of the terminology here. But if it's broad like a cac I'll have to rule it out.

@ mike what say you?
 

mixmixi

Member
Messages
82
I am keeping a pair at the moment. They have spawned 3-4 times by far and all the times the female ate the fry after 2-3 days of free swimmers. I have had no aggression between the pair in any cases although all my apistos are being kept in smaller than "norm" sized tanks. In my last spawn, I've noticed female and male both are trying to keep the fry going. I've also noticed the female cosntantly directs the fry towards the sponge filter in the tank. For my last spawn I decreased the oxygenation and also water movement in my tank than what I generally do with the rest of apistos. It seems it is working pretty well this time and female is concerned about keeping the fry. IMHO, aggression is not a species related, but mostly a fish related thing. Just like humans, animals also have personalities. Some can be a good parent and some can't...
 

MickeM

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
441
Location
STOCKHOLM , SWEDEN
Hi Borelliiguy + all..

My Apistogramma tucurui never got any other food than live+froozen Artemia and live mosquitolarvae..
One interesting thing about the size of our Apistos in captivity though.. is that they often seem to be larger compared to the wild specimens in the documents of the scientifical descriptions.!!
I guess that it`s an effect of living calm and safe with OK water quality+ being served food (enriched??) almost every day.. and our tank fishes may also live longer ??
(But then we don`t know how big other wild Apisto individuals existed.. swimming in the other end of the same creek as the caught examples..
or maybe in deeper water?? :))

I also.. am a little confused about shrimps(and snails!!)in a tank together with Apistos..
I think they eat what they can catch.. especially when being served "confused victims" from above!!
But it may be an issue about concrete differences in behaviours among the Apistogramma species..
Or as simple as the supply of the types of food in their natural habitat??
It would be interesting to get separate statistics regarding wild caught Apistos compared to domestic Apistos in this matter.. not only regarding to species!!


BTW.. mixmixi..+all !!

I have seen female Apistos guarding their fry really good, but.. maybe toooo intense!!??
Several times have my different females been taking fry in their mouths..(as they shall do..) if the fry do not obey her body language/order..
Doing that with the same fry many, many times in the same night..In a way guess the females killed their own product/genetic future..
But that may also just be the result if the fry by any reason can not follow her instructions?? a hard way of natural selection??
My guess is that the females often are so full of hormones/mothering feelings..that they do it without understanding why!!
I have mainly experienced this in tanks without other fishes... where the fry had nothing to be afraid of and maybe causing them to go on bold adventures without their mothers??
And/or.. in tanks were the male+female have no or very few enemies to chase away.. causing the female to be more "nervous" than she usually ought to be..and then acting it out ..towards the male!!.. and maybe towards the fry???

I have less problem with this in my larger tanks!!
Maybe this only happens in small tanks..where the parents can not fullfill their normal roles to play???
(Female being close to the fry.. + Male guarding the territory and also some of his other females if he got any!!)


Cheers
Micke
 

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