Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis

[nanotopes]

I have recently picked up 4 pucallpaensis (a month ago now), I believe I either have 2 males & 2 females or 2 males, 1 sub male & a female.

At the moment they are in a 10 gallon with 4 ember tetras. I have an 18/19 gallon heavily planted that has 10 Neon tetras & 2 oto's as well as a 15g I've been cycling as a proper blackwater setup - have had some health issues lately so it has delayed me finalising where to place the little cichlids.

I also have a heavily planted 6 gallon that I setup for Dario Dario, but unfortunately I lost them while I was away for a few days (I filled the tank a bit higher than normal doing a water change before leaving, I have a lid but they both jumped out a corner gap).

I'm trying to decide how to juggle the fish, I will leave one pair in the 10g & likely remove the ember tetras. I might put them in the 6g, or add them in with the neons & convert the 15g blackwater to a less blackwater setup & put the other pair in there. Perhaps adding a small group of dwarf pencilfish... I could put a pair in with the neons, but I would like the apisto's to breed if possible & had planned on adding another Apisto species or dwarf cichlid in the tetra tank. WWYD?

Attached below is the 15g, has been running a month & a half with no fish. Just botanicals, ostracods, copepods & other microfauna.

And ones of the apisto's in the 10g, the largest of them that I thought a female but has now started to colour up more & chase the definite big male a little, I believe it is a male too. The other two are much smaller & more yellow.

 

[nanotopes]

Correction, 5 ember tetras. I have an empty 5g I'll be setting up with peat to try breeding some soon, where I live embers are hard to come by locally for some reason.

 

[anewbie]

I left my ember with my a. pucallpaensis in a 10; i started with 4 and ended up with 1 male 2 females and 1 unknown (either a runt or submissive male or a female with some colouring); over a long period the dominant female killed the other female (she managed to hide for about 4 or 5 months but eventually i found her badly damaged); anyway i would definitely sep them. My ember were not so much of an issue but i eventually removed them - i forgot why - maybe i though they were praying on the frys or got tired of the female chasing them away - after aobut 18 months my female died so now i have the male and 12 to 20 young ones of various ages - the young ones grow very slowly initially - i think at least 4 to 6 months before they really start to take form - longer to mature. Soon i will move and then i'll put the larger ones in a 120 (gallons) with the male and keep the smaller ones in the 10. I would not put a pair in anything smaller than a 10 with good structure. While the female will allow the male near the frys and the frys actually run to him when they feel unsafe - even now after several months - she will sometime have an attitude towards him. Also i have found that after an extended pair the male is not really human friendly and hide when i'm in the room or feeding the fishes so have some structure that allows him to hide. I'm not sure i would try to grow them out in a 5 - while they are still not exactly vicious towards each other (the frys); i'm so sure there is perfect harmony - also have something that floats as some of the frys (females?) will stay smaller and prefer to be near the top - i use hornworth/pearlweed combined and little insects will get in them which the fishes seems to like. I also have shrimp in my 10 and it seems the fishes will go after them esp the smaller ones/shrimpets which i think is fine as enough make it to maturity to keep the population going but provide some entertainment to the fishes - the larger shrimps have no problem smacking them in the nose if they get too close.

 

[nanotopes]

I left my ember with my a. pucallpaensis in a 10; i started with 4 and ended up with 1 male 2 females and 1 unknown (either a runt or submissive male or a female with some colouring); over a long period the dominant female killed the other female (she managed to hide for about 4 or 5 months but eventually i found her badly damaged); anyway i would definitely sep them. My ember were not so much of an issue but i eventually removed them - i forgot why - maybe i though they were praying on the frys or got tired of the female chasing them away - after aobut 18 months my female died so now i have the male and 12 to 20 young ones of various ages - the young ones grow very slowly initially - i think at least 4 to 6 months before they really start to take form - longer to mature. Soon i will move and then i'll put the larger ones in a 120 (gallons) with the male and keep the smaller ones in the 10. I would not put a pair in anything smaller than a 10 with good structure. While the female will allow the male near the frys and the frys actually run to him when they feel unsafe - even now after several months - she will sometime have an attitude towards him. Also i have found that after an extended pair the male is not really human friendly and hide when i'm in the room or feeding the fishes so have some structure that allows him to hide. I'm not sure i would try to grow them out in a 5 - while they are still not exactly vicious towards each other (the frys); i'm so sure there is perfect harmony - also have something that floats as some of the frys (females?) will stay smaller and prefer to be near the top - i use hornworth/pearlweed combined and little insects will get in them which the fishes seems to like. I also have shrimp in my 10 and it seems the fishes will go after them esp the smaller ones/shrimpets which i think is fine as enough make it to maturity to keep the population going but provide some entertainment to the fishes - the larger shrimps have no problem smacking them in the nose if they get too close.

Thanks for the detailed reply & experience. I'll separate them out. I'm also not sure what I want to do re: dither fish. I have a very thick blanket of red root floaters across the tank & I find the Apistogrammoides spend most of their time under the floaters at the surface, picking at micro fauna in the tank.

Most Apisto are really bottom dwellers, but these little ones seem to be 50/50. So I would recommend a very thick carpet of floating plants to anyone keeping them, based on my limited experience.

 

[anewbie]

Yea here is a picture of my 10 - not recent as it changes over time. I used to have a very very thick bed of pearl weed but one day the mystery snail got hungry and ate nearly all of it - so I added some hornworth from another aquarium and a little bit of pearl weed is hiding in the hornworth - also the hornwork has to be severely trimmed every 2 weeks as it grows quite fast in this aquairum - i think the picture was a day or two after a trimming so it is normally much more dense.

The two pictures were taken several months apart - also the male a. p. hides either under the heater on the back wall or under the large drift wood in the middle - the driftwood is completely covered with moss now so invisible i guess....

 

[anewbie]

This is the new aquarium (4ftx4ft) i'm setting up for my pucallpaensis; the back 2 1/2 feet have a lot of low wood for apisto to hide under and similar; front 1.5 feet is mostly clear for Biotodoma wavrini.