Gold Viejita

[libasci]

I took a quick visit to the Annual ACA and picked up a pair of Gold Viejita (Probably should of picked up two pairs). Anyone have any experience with these do they breed readily - does anyone carry them in case I want a second pair?


Jason

 

[Mike Wise]

Those were Tony Orso's fish. Of course, they are a domestic strain. He imported them from the Czech Republic. Uwe told me many of the Czech fish were actually being bred & raised in Russia now because heating prices are too high to make hatcheries in the Czech Rep. profitable. Russia, on the other hand, has much oil, heating costs are comparatively less expensive, but many of the hatcheries in Russia have little experience with diseases popping up and their water is more poluted. This leads to more sick fish. I strongly recommend a long quarantine period for these fish - at least a month. Don't get me wong. I am not "knocking" Tony's fish. After all, I bought a pair of blue body/red tail A. agassizii from him. They however will be in quarantine for at least 2 months even if they look health. I expect that they will even spawn while in quarantine. I am just careful. I don't want to spread any problems to my other fish.

 

[libasci]

Yeah those Agassizii looked amazing as well - but I always find them to be a shy fish - and always hiding. Is that typical of Agassizii.

But these gold Viejita are beautiful - they look to be quite healthy - but I have them in a 12 gallon with a pair of Borrelli I picked up from them as well.

So they are pretty isolated.

Jason

 

[Mike Wise]

The aggies I bought are in a 20 gallon Long tank with only a couple of caves and a tiny clump of Java Moss. About 15 minutes after they were released into the tank they were swimming about in the front (all over actually). They are not shy at all. Most apistos are not especially shy if they know they have places to hide and the surface is covered by plants. They don't like bright tanks with open water surfaces (kingfishers are a major predator of small fish in the wild).

If your A. borellii are full-grown right now, they should be OK, but remember A. borellii is usually a casually monogamous species while macmasteri-group forms are more polygamous and will attempt to claim large areas of a tank (reports of claim entire tanks over 1 meter long are not unusual). Your tank is too small for them be be housed together for a very long time.

 

[libasci]

Yeah I know the Viejita are little more than the Borelli can handle in the long run. I will probably move the Borelli out to another 12 gallon tank I have - I need to figure out what to do with the two big boys (Viejita CF and Bitanetia) I have in that tank. Of i just need to get a fourth tank .

The big question I have is if this strain of Viejita is from the Czech is it possible to breed fish from the Czech easily or are they a lot more difficult to breed?

Jason

 

[Mike Wise]

In my experience wild and domestic are not really that hard to breed if you have the correct water conditions.

 

[Greg PL]

A few years ago there were bad rumors about Czech breeders. They were said to X-ray the fish, causing infertility... for whatever that's worth.
I could never confirm it. Although the fish were often very delicate, susceptible to deseases and sometimes hard to introduce to my tanks - they were fertile when reaching proper size/age.
I never saw an X-ray machine in the fish farm I visited there, too
and they all were fed with self-collected live food, cyclops, glassworms etc.