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Aarhud’s 125 gallon Apistogramma Tank (Not a Biotope)

aarhud

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343
Free swimmers spotted today. I fed some micro worms, but the fry appeared to have white bellies already. No doubt they are getting some meals off of the algae and fungus growing on the oak branches/leaves.
 

aarhud

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343
I lost another adult. I lost the female that was guarding the fry. The body must have been a day old. The stomach was reddish in appearance just like the male that died several weeks back. The fry are still swimming around fine. The male is not showing any signs of distress. He is cruising around and sifting sand.

I treated with levisamole again, as the tank was due for treatment anyway. Any other ideas? The only common denominator is the reddish stomach/abdomen of the deceased fish. No thinning or abnormal behavior beforehand.
 

Shane Puthuparambil

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126
Sorry for your loss!

Cacuatoides are extremely aggressive. Not totally surprised.

Rival males/alpha can be the issue.

Seperate fry from male, or he will snack!
 

aarhud

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Two Apistogramma in a heavily structured 6-foot tank. Aggression is not the issue. I lost the last female. She was in a 10 gallon along with two pencil fish. She was eating fine. I found her today, dead with redness around the stomach.

Whatever is killing the Apistogramma is not affecting the Nannostomus marginatus.

I have three males left. I'm not sure how many fry are left. The fry no longer stick together, so they are spread out amongst the oak branches and leaf litter.
 

aarhud

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Bummer. Apistos sure do seem prone to "mysterious death syndrome".
This is why they'll never be "bread and butter" fish in the mass-market hobby.

I counted 40ish fry today. Can you think of anything that would kill adults, but not harm the fry? The fry have been free swimming for 3 weeks now. I'm alternating between brine shrimp and microworms.
 

gerald

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A slow-growing internal infection comes to mind, but you'd expect to see some symptoms for at least a few days or weeks before death. If your adults went from healthy-looking totally normal behavior to dead in a day or two, and they're not visibly beat up, then i'm stumped. Any chance of bad food maybe?
 

aarhud

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I don't know Gerald. I have fed brine shrimp, Microworms, Grindalworms, and New Life Spectrum small fish formula.

Could the NLS be bad?

I dont think the live foods I am feeding could be bad. The cultures do not smell or look unhealthy. The grindal worms are living in a foam media. Poret foam to be specific, I had some left over.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

aarhud

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343
The Apistogramma fry are growing like weeds. I should have plenty of females once they hit sexual maturity.

I raised some rainbow cichlid fry alongside the Apistogramma for four weeks. I'm amazed at how much eaiser the A. multispinosa are to raise (easier to feed, grow faster, convert to dry food quickly, etc). No wonder Apistogramma are not often produced commercially. Interestingly enough, the Apistogramma raised alongside the rainbow cichlid fry did better than their counterparts housed in their own tank.

Probably not very suprising to many of you. I usually don't raise fry, much less two species at the same time.
 

gerald

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That part IS interesting! I would have guessed the Herotilapia fry would bully and outcompete the Apisto fry for food. Maybe having voracious feeders as tankmates encourages the Apistos to eat more?

. Interestingly enough, the Apistogramma raised alongside the rainbow cichlid fry did better than their counterparts housed in their own tank. Probably not very suprising to many of you. I usually don't raise fry, much less two species at the same time.
 

aarhud

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That part IS interesting! I would have guessed the Herotilapia fry would bully and outcompete the Apisto fry for food. Maybe having voracious feeders as tankmates encourages the Apistos to eat more?

One of the biggest factors IMO was that the Herotilapia seemed to elicit a feeding response on both dry food and live. Where the Apistogramma kept alone seemed to hold out for live food.

You are right in that it did not take long for the Herotilapia to get to boisterous for the Apistogramma. But by that time they were big enough not to be snacks in another tank.
 

aarhud

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The fry are 20 weeks old now and some are starting to sex out. Won't be long now and I'll be able to introduce females back to the two males I have left from the original wild group.
 

aarhud

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Just to update:

I ended up losing all of the original A. cacatuoides. I still have a large group of fry that are on the edge of sexing out.

The plants took a hard hit when my schedule got hectic. I had a crazy aphid infestation and I did not catch on until a lot of the immersed growth was destroyed.

I'm doing what I said I would not do, change the fish! I had bought some P. pulcher to enjoy while the Apisto fry were growing and I am hooked on them. So the tank is going to get a major overhaul and changed to a Cameroon/Nigeria biotope of sorts. I may take another shot at a Riparium now that the aphids are gone.
 

rasmusW

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455
Hey aarhud!

Any updates on this tank. The initial tank lokkes great, so i’m really curious to see how it planned out with african setup... -if you went that way.

-r
 

aarhud

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343
Hey aarhud!

Any updates on this tank. The initial tank lokkes great, so i’m really curious to see how it planned out with african setup... -if you went that way.

-r

I ended up taking the tank a different route. I have pressurized CO2 with medium lighting and lots of stem plants.
Tank inhabitants are Wild A. cacatuoides again. I brought in another group and this time around they look great! I also have some killifish in there.

Ripariums are awesome. What I will do next time, is go for a rimless tank with suspended lighting. I think it is easier to see the plants and enjoy them that way. The aphids really ended up ruining my last shot, and with the Apistogramma dying I lost interest.
 

rasmusW

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Sounds great with new setup. Please post pics when you got them.

I too got rimless tanks and my 3 swords in the big one is well over 50 cm tall.

-r
 

Happyfins

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Location
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Just read this post for the first time. I would avoid heavy feeding with grindals and microworms in adults and adolescents. Probably not more than once or twice per week. Fry don't seem to mind but older fish get bloat and I killed off a lot of my cacatuoides in their adolescent stage this way. This is one reason why I like to separate fry from adults at some stage as the feeding regime can be adjusted much easier.
 

aarhud

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343
Sounds great with new setup. Please post pics when you got them.

I too got rimless tanks and my 3 swords in the big one is well over 50 cm tall.

-r


Do you have any pictures of your setup? I love rimless tanks. Once you get used to that look its hard to go back to rims lol.

I will certainly post pictures. I just did a huge trim so things look rough lol. But the cool thing about injected CO2 is in two weeks things fill back in!
 

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