All male apisto tank

[ghavoc]

Has anyone ever done an all male apisto tank? I have read of a few people doing this succesfully. Most people do not recommend it but is that due to personal experience or because they would rather be safe than sorry? I am thinking of turning my 55g into one if it is possible. Currently it is a heavily planted tank with ember tetras and a pair of breeding kribs who constantly have babies!! I would most likely give the kribs away or bite the bullet and give them a tank of their own. I am not a fan of breeding fish since I just don't know what to do with all the babies and do not like maintaining more than one tank so any information on an all male tank would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mike Wise]

This works well so long as every male has a territory. I just add some floating tubes made of black PBS to the top of the tank for fish that don't have a territory. These fish should be removed for their own safety.

 

[Melanochromis]

I've always kept all-male and all-female tanks. For me, this is necessary in order to control the population and to maintain all the fish in a tiny apartment that I live in. The all-male tanks are probably much easier to maintain than most people would have thought, and they are nice to look at too. From my experience, there are a couple of very useful tricks, some of which are totally opposite to what Mike Wise suggested. So take caution if you are trying these:

- Keep a very large open space that occupies 80-90% of the tank. If there's driftwood, large plants or anything else that the fish could use as a territory marker, put them all in one small area far away from the feeding area, usually the furthest corner. This reduces the desire to establish a territory.
- Carefully select the fish. They all should have similar sizes and the same level of aggressiveness. This prevents one fish from dominating the tank or getting bullied by all other fish.
- Make sure they see no other fish of the opposite sex, not even in the adjacent tank. This reduces the aggression of course.
- Make sure the tank is "crowded" enough. This is very important. It's the same principle as the Malawi cichild tank, although not as extreme.

Even if all tricks are used, occasionally you still need to remove certain individual that are problematic, but in general this works for me very well and at the moment I maintain several all-male tanks that are very, very enjoyable to watch. Good luck!

 

[pmcbar]

I have an all male tank that got started by accident. I’ve been breeding Caucatoides for several years and my spawns always seem to have a few more males then females. After I’ve sold off all the pairs, I would have a couple of left over males. Since I need the room to grow out the next batch, if I was unable to sell the “leftovers” I put them in my 125 gallon community tank. I currently have about 8 of them living in there now.

 

[magpie]

I am considering this as well. Thanks for the tips, although I think it's too late in my tank to keep that much space open - it's filled with plants.