Cacatuoides Fry Instructions

[Harrison]

Mike, what frozen foods would you recommend?

 

[Mike Wise]

I tend to mix adult brine shrimp with some bloodworms. If I could find some frozen (black) mosquito larvea (the real thing, not glassworms) I'd use them, too. Glassworms, often sold as 'white mosquito larvae' are fine, but I can't find them in large blocks. For dry food, the only one my apistos are even remotely interested in is Bugbites. There is an advantage to feeding live BBS everyday. Some dither fish fry appear every once in a while - along with that batch of apisto fry that mom has hidden from sight.

 

[Hellfishguy]

Frozen cyclops & ground flakes.

 

[yukondog]

Mine [Macs.] dont seem to like the cyclops, but they do love [live and frozen] mosquito larva, with ground shrimp pellets and powdered flake food to transition them over to flake food, I have two batches that are about 12 weeks old and there little pigs if it goes in the tank they try to eat it.

 

[Ben Rhau]

What company sells frozen glassworms? I can't find them at any of my LFS. It looks like San Francisco Bay Brand used to, but it is no longer listed on their website.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Welp, I just saw an N. marginatus eat a fry that wandered to the top of the tank. So it can happen, FYI. The pencils are staying away from the mother, though, where most of the fry are.

 

[Harrison]

Another update and a question:

Now the fish are juveniles, being about 24 weeks old or so. I still have 15 or so in my 10-gallon grow-out tank, and I left 5 or so in my original tank with mom and dad. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there are a few males in the original tank that are definitely a bit larger than all of the fish in the grow-out tank. Regardless, I know that it is about time to move all of these fish out of these smaller tanks, so I have a 35-gallon tank that's been cycling for about 3-4 months ready to go for these baby fish.

My question is: has anyone ever attempted to keep 20ish apistogramma from the same batch together into adulthood? I was hoping to make this a single-species tank with the 20 fish I have left. I can already tell which fish are males/females (assuming there are a few males that appear female), and can already tell which fish are dominant. Would it make sense to add all of these fish to my 35-gallon and just expect them to be able to thrive throughout adulthood together?

Thanks!

 

[Harrison]

This is the largest male right now:
(Look at his colors!!!)

 

[Mike Wise]

Unless the structure in the tank is so dense that you never can see more than 1 or 2 fish at a time, you will have trouble when they want to breed. Both males and females will try to stake out breeding territories. The less dominant fish will need to be removed or die. My experience is that males can be mean, but females are vicious.