Help with my Apistos

[n25philly]

I'm not new to Apistos and have had my apistogramma cacatouides for probably six months or so now if not longer. When I first got them they bred a few times, and while raising the fry didn't work out for them it was fascinating to watch. I had a very busy summer wish a lot of problems, and while I took very good care of them I was too busy to noticed that they stopped breeding.

I keep reading all of the time that they are very easy to breed and that if they aren't breeding there is likely a problem in the tank. I've been trying to figure out what they problem could be, but after a few weeks I am stumped. The water is very soft. I don't have an RO unit, but I use a zero water unit that I use to keep the tds of the water I am adding low and I keep fluval peat granules in the zero water to help keep it soft like they like. The water in the tank tends to have a very low PH even without this.

I have a trio in the tank and there are three caves, one with java moss growing on top. In general the tank is a jungle with plants growing wildly all over and I typically don't mess with the plants unless something is dying.

I almost exclusively feed them frozen food and get them live blackworms whenever I go to the lfs. This tank is in my office at work, so they typically get fed well during the week, but are on their own on the weekends.

Best I can tell they are very happy. I see them flirting with each other all of the time. Tail whipping all of the time. The male is constantly showing off his fins. At times I see the ladies getting protective of their little territories on each end of the tank. Beyond that though, nothing. The females will hang out by the caves, but it's clear there are no eggs in them and they are not really guarding them. If I come near the tank they always rush over like little puppy dogs and they seem to really love their tank.

What should I be looking for parameter wise that might be off? Maybe something I am doing wrong? I am especially wondering because I got another kind of apisto at home (labeled Borelli at the store, but could possibly be Steel Blues) that already bred and have managed to keep some babies alive for over a week and a half now, better then my cacatouides have ever done and that tank is nowhere near as nice as this one.

 

[Mike Wise]

I'm not familiar with your ZeroWater system. It claims to be a low pressure r/o system, but I've never heard of such a thing. R/O filters need to force water through a membrane at high pressure. To me it appears that your system is a micron style filter system with carbon and ion exchange resins added. Depending on the resin used, it can exchange Ca & Mg (hard water) ions for Na. While Na doesn't increase hardness it does increase conductivity. Maybe your conductivity is too high. You need a conductivity meter to test this. If your tapwater isn't true 'liquid cement' you might want to replace some of your tank water with treated tapwater. A. cacatuoides is quite adaptable to water values.

 

[n25philly]

By conductivity you mean TDS right? The tank is at 318 at the moment. The zero water reduces the TDS to zero (at least until the filter starts to wear out) I've been doing small water changes 3-5 times a week and when I do it brings the total tds down anywhere from 5-20 total but overall it goes down pretty slowly. It's not that much higher than it was when they were breeding, but I think back then it was around mid 200's maybe a bit lower.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

By conductivity you mean TDS right? The tank is at 318 at the moment. The zero water reduces the TDS to zero (at least until the filter starts to wear out) I've been doing small water changes 3-5 times a week and when I do it brings the total tds down anywhere from 5-20 total but overall it goes down pretty slowly. It's not that much higher than it was when they were breeding, but I think back then it was around mid 200's maybe a bit lower.

The ppm TDS estimation is derived from the conductivity. All TDS meters actually measure conductivity and then us a conversion factor to give you a "TDS" reading.

The TDS meter will tell you the conversion factor, but it is usually 1microS conductivity = 0.64 ppm TDS, so your 318 ppm TDS is equivalent to about 500 microS. I think that is definitely higher than you would want.

When you say your water is very soft do you mean your tap water, or the water after it has been through the ZeroWater Unit?

cheers Darrel

 

[n25philly]

I don't know why but my last post didn't show up. I don't know about the tap, I never tested it only the water in the actually tank which always came out fairly soft. PH and KH have always been low while GH fairly low. It's been some time since I tested it though.


Anyway, I found my test kit and just tested the PH, KH and GH of the water in the tank.

PH is low. Came out yellow, clearly in the 6.0 or lower range of the measurement.

KH took 3 drops to turn bright yellow

GH took 7 drops to turn green which according to the chart is one more than it says should be for cichlids. I don't really understand the whole kh/gh that well, so maybe someone smarting here can let me know if I am close to what I should have or not.

 

[Mike Wise]

Like I wrote previously, If your ZeroWater system uses an ion exchange resin to lower hardness - and it uses Na to exchange for Ca & Mg - then your water's electrical conductivity may be higher than your apistos like for breeding. Test your tap water and let us know the values. They may be more acceptable for breeding your cacatuoides than your treated water.

 

[MickeM]

Found this info/maps .. (U.S.)
It might "shed a light" of/to your situation???

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/hardness.html

 

[n25philly]

OK, I got a chance to test the tap water:

PH was pretty high. I didn't try the high range solution, but with the regular it came out at the top of the chart, 7.6. Maybe I'll have to run the other test.

KH was a little high taking 4 drops

GH was around the same, taking around 7 drops (I had a little trouble telling the color, but it was the same or at most taking 8 drops.

 

[Mike Wise]

Your water appears to be only moderately hard, well within the range for breeding cacatuoides. The pH seems high, but it might be due to you water department adding a a chemical to increase the pH to protect water mains. If it were my tank, I'd try using straight tap water and see if it works. If not, I'd try tap water filtered through peat to lower the pH. Either way the result won't any worse than what you have gotten so far.

 

[n25philly]

Ok, a quick update, I've been doing the water changes without the zero water and have been using the peat granules in it which seems to make the water slightly softer. I've been doing small water changes 3-5 times a week. So far not much seems to have changed. TDS started going down, but then went up over this past weekend and is now up to 365.

I did notice one of the females showing her breeding colors to the male and the other looked like she was starting to guard one of the caves, but neither lasted. I guess it's wait and see.

It's better than my tank at home with the steel blues. The male got sick and died so I went back to the store and got another (so hard to sex at the store so I just got the biggest one they had that is much bigger than the two females I already had figuring it would be a safe bet) and now all three are showing female breeding colors to each other. (lesbians!)