Newbie Here!!!

[trickmandung]

I have been surfing the net for quite a while looking for a good apisto website... then I found this site, so here I am posting my very first thread. I am not new with fish keeping. I have been keeping tank busters for as long as I could remember like Red Terrors, Red Devils, Oscars, and the likes, but all of sudden, the apisto bug bit me.

While researching, I saw a bunch of pics of different species of apistos online and the one that struck me the most were the Panduros and the Nijssenis. So after reading some horror stories on them, I've still ordered a pair of Panduros online. To my surprise, I was sent a young trio (1M 2F) so that was very nice. The first two days were fine and dandy but immediately right after the dominant female ate all the baby RCS (which put her into breeding mode), she turned yellow and began terrorizing the whole tank. She managed to kill the male which jumped out to his death, and then beat up the other female pretty good. I was at my gf house when all the action happened :frown: So when I got home, I put up a divider but it didn't help because both of them died after a few days. I think the death was caused by stress, the poor quality of the stock, and the liquid rock water that I was using.

I learned alot from the bad week long experience... so I've bought myself a portable RO unit and a pair of Nijsseni from my LFS, instead of ordering online which I think helped reduce the amount of stress on the fish. Unfortunately, I had to treat the new pair with meds because I think the previous Panduros were carrying some gill flukes. So far so good though... so wish me luck!

I will post some pics when I get a chance. Thanks!

 

[MonteSS]

At first, I was leary about getting Apistos, hearing that they were hard to keep.

I bought a Trio of wild caught A. Melgar for my 26g tank. I lost one female to aggression but the pair are doing well.

I recently bought four more wild pairs for a 75g community tank and all are doing great and establishing their territories. They are small still but growing fast. We will see how they get along as they mature and breed.

So basically, I have found them to be a joy and easy to keep.

Hang in there...Bill

 

[trickmandung]

Thanks Bill! Even though the apistos are alot harder and cost $$$ to keep compared to their bigger cichlid cousins, when you see them thrive and interact naturally its just priceless...