can your pairs see each other?

[aspen]

i just set up 3 tanks (10, 10, 15 gal) with a nice pair in each tank of a. cacatoides, a. agassizzi and a. bitanaeta. presently i have them side by side, with each in full view of each other. i also have a single oto in each tank, to hopefully take some of the agression out of the males, which seems to be effective. tanks are bare bottom with a single cave in each tank and a corner box filter in each, plus a heater of course, set at 78- 80 deg. each tank has a small light over it, and i leave a 7 watt light on at night.

while i get to see lots of male 'showing' to the male in the next tank, i am wondering if i'm using a good approach, or should i slide a solid separator between the tanks.

i am in the process of conditioning them, feeding them nothing but frozen bloodworms and frozen tubifex worms, and cutting the tapwater i started with (gh 8, kh 4, ph 7.8) with pure r/o. i am down to 1/3 tap in each tank, and will put a small sock with peat in each tank and start measuring ph.

after keeping apistos for about a year, i want to get serious about raising some nice spawns. i hope this works. any thoughts?

tia, rick

 

[Neil]

Hey Rick! It has been awhile.
I certainly use this method and feel that it definitely contributes a valuable aspect to developing parental behavior. Draw-backs can occur, like a fish in one tank being more interested in a fish in another than the one in their own. I have even had a female guarding fry from another tank through the glass. But, overall it seems to decrease aggression within the pair and keeps the male busy in a tank without any targets or dithers.
Your 3 choices are all nice apistos. But remember that the water values that are necessary for successful spawning is slightly different in all 3. You will probably need to keep the pH/hardness lower for the aggies than the cacs, and lower still for the bits.
Good luck and hope you have 3 batches of fry swimming around soon!
Neil

 

[aspen]

thanks neil. what targets for water values should i go for spawning for each of these apistos?

rick

 

[Neil]

A. cacatuoides 7.0 pH, 5dGH
A agassizii 6.5 pH, 3dGH
A bitaeniata 6.0 pH, 2dGH

A little lower pH on each wouldn't hurt a bit, but the main thing is TDS. You already have a very good understanding of that.
Neil

 

[tjudy]

I had a pair of albino kribs once that had a female who was horribly aggressive towards the male. He was a bit small, but he was also all I had. I tried several target fish, but the only one that worked was another female krib.... I got tired to losing female krib targets. So.. I taped a small mirror to the front of the tank. It worked. The albino female tried to kill her image constantly, and the male got some needed rest.