Hello everybody!
My name is Kevin, I'm only 21 years old and yet very interested in dwarf cichlids!
I myself own various apisto species and I have bred with most of which I own. I continue to learn everyday and after years of searching I still haven't found the apisto's I want the most. But more about that later.
I currently have:
A 33 gal(120 liters) which I consider a show tank of apisto's. It's an amazone biotope tank with a pair of A. viejita, a pair of A. Agassizii of whom the boths pairs breed frequently but since I don't intend to breed them I just leave them there and If I got surviving fry I give them to good friends. Furthermore the tank houses a variety of female apisto's who have been driven away from pairs of where I lost the male.
These are: A female A. Cacatuoides (spelling?), a female A. trifasciata and a female A. Borelli. Because of the natural habitat they all live and thrive there, sometimes a little quarrel but each has their own oak-leaf-coverd coconut.
I also have 2 20 gal (long) breeders of which one is split into 2 and another into 3.
The one which is split into 2 houses a pair of A. Cacatuoides triple red (altough I suspect the female to be double red) who breed frequently. On the other side of the tank I have a breeding pair of A. nijseni which also breed frequently.
All of the fry go into the 20 gal that is split into 3. All fry of 1 - 5/6 weeks goes into the left, when I feel they get to big I move them to the middle part and the bigger right part is for grow out. Since it's a fairly "large" tank it's easy to keep water parameters good and it isn't all that hard to clean.
Now I am really happy with my current stock of apisto's but I really would love to keep and breed some of the less common apisto species. Especially the A. Barlowi or A. kelleri. Unfortunatly I haven't had the luck to encounter them here in Belgium. I know there should be Dutch Apisto enthusiasts that were among the first to bring the A. kelleri to europe but I haven't encountered any yet. My only lead is a large shipping company (I don't know if I can say the name on here, if yes i'll edit) which I contacted that had kelleri fry growing out but I never heard of them again, so I assume the fry was already reserved of didn't make it.
If there are any people here from belgium or the netherlands that has any of these 2 species and is willing to sell/ship them please don't hesitate! Or if they just want to get to know me and talk about apisto's don't hold back!
Now that's me in a rather large coconutshell!
Nice to meet you!
My name is Kevin, I'm only 21 years old and yet very interested in dwarf cichlids!
I myself own various apisto species and I have bred with most of which I own. I continue to learn everyday and after years of searching I still haven't found the apisto's I want the most. But more about that later.
I currently have:
A 33 gal(120 liters) which I consider a show tank of apisto's. It's an amazone biotope tank with a pair of A. viejita, a pair of A. Agassizii of whom the boths pairs breed frequently but since I don't intend to breed them I just leave them there and If I got surviving fry I give them to good friends. Furthermore the tank houses a variety of female apisto's who have been driven away from pairs of where I lost the male.
These are: A female A. Cacatuoides (spelling?), a female A. trifasciata and a female A. Borelli. Because of the natural habitat they all live and thrive there, sometimes a little quarrel but each has their own oak-leaf-coverd coconut.
I also have 2 20 gal (long) breeders of which one is split into 2 and another into 3.
The one which is split into 2 houses a pair of A. Cacatuoides triple red (altough I suspect the female to be double red) who breed frequently. On the other side of the tank I have a breeding pair of A. nijseni which also breed frequently.
All of the fry go into the 20 gal that is split into 3. All fry of 1 - 5/6 weeks goes into the left, when I feel they get to big I move them to the middle part and the bigger right part is for grow out. Since it's a fairly "large" tank it's easy to keep water parameters good and it isn't all that hard to clean.
Now I am really happy with my current stock of apisto's but I really would love to keep and breed some of the less common apisto species. Especially the A. Barlowi or A. kelleri. Unfortunatly I haven't had the luck to encounter them here in Belgium. I know there should be Dutch Apisto enthusiasts that were among the first to bring the A. kelleri to europe but I haven't encountered any yet. My only lead is a large shipping company (I don't know if I can say the name on here, if yes i'll edit) which I contacted that had kelleri fry growing out but I never heard of them again, so I assume the fry was already reserved of didn't make it.
If there are any people here from belgium or the netherlands that has any of these 2 species and is willing to sell/ship them please don't hesitate! Or if they just want to get to know me and talk about apisto's don't hold back!
Now that's me in a rather large coconutshell!
Nice to meet you!