new to apisto's

[ihavefishwantmore]

I have kept and bred many fish, but not apisto's. I really want to. I have not seen any in my area. Our water here is hard and the PH is 7.6 or above. I know apisto's prefer soft acidic. Give me some suggestions please. Are there some colorfull apisto's that will breed in my water? I can modify it. I have done it for discus before. I would like to incourage others around here to do apisto's, and the less they have to do to the water the better. Give it to me straight. Suggest some really colorfull easy breeders. Any tips or tricks would be great

 

[M0oN]

Apistogramma panduro have been documented to breed in hard water conditions, Mike Jacob's said he got them to breed at around 7.5 pH with 500 microsemens gH

 

[farm41]

I wonder if the eggs developed at that hardness

 

[M0oN]

Sure did Farm41...it's even mentioned in Cichlid Atlas by Romer that they can spawn in harder waters...

Eggs hatching don't really have anything to do with gH, it's more of calcium and mag. you can have a ppm of like 800 and they'll still hatch with low levels of those two...

 

[Mike Wise]

A. cacatuoides will breed in much harder water than you have.

Mike Wise

 

[Neil]

ihavefishwantmore,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Although nijsseni-group fish (panduro) are capable of breeding in harder, more alkaline water, I have not found them to do it very successfully. I would stick with Mike's suggestion or maybe even A. borellii. Both are very nice-looking, easy to spawn fish that can handle your water conditions in both general husbandry and breeding.

Good luck in finding some!

Neil

 

[ihavefishwantmore]

Thanks for the reply. I've already been looking around the web for some, and I hope to make an order soon. Any tips to induce breeding? What do you feed your young?