I always thought if the Ph was higher than 7.0 the eggs would not hatch. But I was recently told that others have had sucessful spawns in a PH of 7.6. I keep my apisto's and fry in a PH of 6.4. Is it possible to raise the PH to 7.6 and still have sucessful spawns? This would sure make water changes alot easier. Please advise...Thanks to all who respond.
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Ph question about Apistogramma Cacatuoides
- Thread starter edmlfc1
- Start date
- Messages
- 593
- Location
- Sydney, NSW Australia
Morning,
I have found that if you already have a right mix of breeders with correct PH, then not to change that. Just because it is easier, does not make it better. Some Apistos will adjust to a higher PH and will eventually spawn, but I find 7.6 quite high. It has been my experience with my apsitos, that between 6-7 it should be fine. You would have now a few options.
1. try with you water at 7.6 to make it easier, however it might take a few months or spawns before the so called aclimatisation
or
2. Leave it how it is.
3. look at a better way to prepare for water changes
I do not know how hard your water is or what the circumstances are that make your water changes difficult.
sorry could not be much of help
cheers jan-kurt
I have found that if you already have a right mix of breeders with correct PH, then not to change that. Just because it is easier, does not make it better. Some Apistos will adjust to a higher PH and will eventually spawn, but I find 7.6 quite high. It has been my experience with my apsitos, that between 6-7 it should be fine. You would have now a few options.
1. try with you water at 7.6 to make it easier, however it might take a few months or spawns before the so called aclimatisation
or
2. Leave it how it is.
3. look at a better way to prepare for water changes
I do not know how hard your water is or what the circumstances are that make your water changes difficult.
sorry could not be much of help
cheers jan-kurt
- Messages
- 44
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Oops - saw the heading - it's about cacs.
From memory, cacatoides prefers neutral pH, so as long as it's not too far off (either way) then it should be okay.
Just make sure the tank is properly cycled as ammonia at pH > 7 can be fatal to little fish.
Cheers,
Thomas.
From memory, cacatoides prefers neutral pH, so as long as it's not too far off (either way) then it should be okay.
Just make sure the tank is properly cycled as ammonia at pH > 7 can be fatal to little fish.
Cheers,
Thomas.
Thanks everyone. I will be leaving it the way it is. The fish are happy and the fry are doing great at that PH.
For my water changes I use a trash can and Seachem Acid Buffer to get my PH down. I think after 4 months of wasting lots of water I finally got the mix right. This is my water change method, fill trashcan, add buffer, test water, test temp,drag trash can to first tank, dip out water to put in tank. Repeat for next tank. I only use this method on the apisto tanks. All the other tanks I do the python method.
Woke up this morning and she was spawning again
(caught her and bigdaddy in the act). I just can't believe it, her fry are only 18 days old.
For my water changes I use a trash can and Seachem Acid Buffer to get my PH down. I think after 4 months of wasting lots of water I finally got the mix right. This is my water change method, fill trashcan, add buffer, test water, test temp,drag trash can to first tank, dip out water to put in tank. Repeat for next tank. I only use this method on the apisto tanks. All the other tanks I do the python method.
Woke up this morning and she was spawning again
(caught her and bigdaddy in the act). I just can't believe it, her fry are only 18 days old.- Messages
- 317
- Location
- Argentina
Some Apistos could do fine (and spawn) in a PH of 7.5 (trifasciata, borelli, commbrae, domestic bred cacatuoides, cf. eunotus); but I prefer to mantain these sp. at 6.5.
- Messages
- 133
- Location
- Tel Aviv, Israel
It is possible to get successful breeding and hatching in relatively high pH when it comes to A. cacatuoides because in the wild they also inhabit areas with similar conditions (neutral pH and slightly harder water). Though if you can get them breed regularly in lower pH without any special difficulties it's fine also. Do what works for you ...
...- Messages
- 88
- Location
- Athens Greece
most important for the eggs to hatch is the GH not the PH.with the GH between 4-6 it will be ok for the eggs.but i think it is easy to keep the water at 6,5 PH(if the tank is not too big).
- Messages
- 44
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
One area you need to be careful of is pH do influence the gender ratio of the fry. From memory, higher pH promote more female while lower for male. Not 100% if this is true for all species though (but there has been experiment with cacatoides which align with the above believe).
Thomas.
Thomas.
- Messages
- 88
- Location
- Athens Greece
that is true.a friend of mine bred rams in different ph levels.he saw that when the PH was 6,5 there where almost 50% males 50%females.i dont remember what gender where the fish in water with higher or lower PH
- Messages
- 168
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
Scientific studies in this area done with Apistogramma spp. suggests that pH only influences a little on the sex ratio, while temperature is a determining factor the first 4-6 weeks of their lives.
According to this 26 degrees celcius should give you app. a 50/50 ratio. I have personally found in my setups that this tends to yield more females. But then again; I haven't anywhere near a sample size to use these data scientifically.
I think that pH has a more significant affect in determining the sex in West African dwarves. Someone else should be able to say something more qualified about this.
Oh, and about the cacas. I happen to live in a country with very hard water and in my area a pH about 8. You would be surprised how many apistos have been succesfully reproduced in this water. Brood sizes may not always be high in numbers, but I'm certain that cacas would do just fine and reproduce well in your tap water. For many other species I would not recommend keeping them in high pH water. The may reproduce in such water, but softer slightly acidic water would in many cases prolongue their lives and overall life quality.
Lars
According to this 26 degrees celcius should give you app. a 50/50 ratio. I have personally found in my setups that this tends to yield more females. But then again; I haven't anywhere near a sample size to use these data scientifically.
I think that pH has a more significant affect in determining the sex in West African dwarves. Someone else should be able to say something more qualified about this.
Oh, and about the cacas. I happen to live in a country with very hard water and in my area a pH about 8. You would be surprised how many apistos have been succesfully reproduced in this water. Brood sizes may not always be high in numbers, but I'm certain that cacas would do just fine and reproduce well in your tap water. For many other species I would not recommend keeping them in high pH water. The may reproduce in such water, but softer slightly acidic water would in many cases prolongue their lives and overall life quality.
Lars
- Messages
- 706
- Location
- Clarkston, WA
When I was living in Seattle I experimented with techniques to achieve the best balance I could between the sexes using wild caught Blue phase Apistogramma agassizi. I had problems with the idea that pH has much to do with sex determination. A. agassizi is one of the species where skewed sex ratios have been reported.
I had a different hypothesis. My hypothesis was based on that intraspecific aggression served to disperse the fry to new territories. In an aquarium, there simply isn't enough room for each fish to find a territory of its own. I made a second assumption that even when fry are unsexable by my eyes, the juveniles could differentiate between the sexes and that males were inherently more aggressive than females.
As soon as about 80 fry were beginning to lose schooling cohesion I removed them all from the breeding tank and moved them to a 100 liter aquarium.
I placed enough hollow ceramic bio media cylinders to cover the bottom of a bare bottom aquarium. These cylinders allowed more hiding places than there were fry and prevented line of sight between them except at feeding times.
I only did this twice with this species but I was able to get very close to equal numbers of sexes as one could reasonably hope for.
On both times I was able to raise the fry to adults although I did have to make water changes of 75% every day in order to finish raising them to maturity during the last 10 weeks because there were so many fish in the aquarium.
As a result of my experiments I have continued to use this same method on all Apistogramma sp I have raised. I believe that if the fry do not all have sufficient sense and actual security from sibling aggression it will be the females that suffer the most and consequently a relatively higher mortality rate than the more aggressive and larger males.
My pH was 7.2, GH ~6 and temperature was maintained at 80*F.
I had a different hypothesis. My hypothesis was based on that intraspecific aggression served to disperse the fry to new territories. In an aquarium, there simply isn't enough room for each fish to find a territory of its own. I made a second assumption that even when fry are unsexable by my eyes, the juveniles could differentiate between the sexes and that males were inherently more aggressive than females.
As soon as about 80 fry were beginning to lose schooling cohesion I removed them all from the breeding tank and moved them to a 100 liter aquarium.
I placed enough hollow ceramic bio media cylinders to cover the bottom of a bare bottom aquarium. These cylinders allowed more hiding places than there were fry and prevented line of sight between them except at feeding times.
I only did this twice with this species but I was able to get very close to equal numbers of sexes as one could reasonably hope for.
On both times I was able to raise the fry to adults although I did have to make water changes of 75% every day in order to finish raising them to maturity during the last 10 weeks because there were so many fish in the aquarium.
As a result of my experiments I have continued to use this same method on all Apistogramma sp I have raised. I believe that if the fry do not all have sufficient sense and actual security from sibling aggression it will be the females that suffer the most and consequently a relatively higher mortality rate than the more aggressive and larger males.
My pH was 7.2, GH ~6 and temperature was maintained at 80*F.
- Messages
- 577
- Location
- Nottingham, UK
The above is very interesting. The only time I have ever had an unbalanced number of fish was the last lot of P.subocellatus 'Matadi' I sold. I know that the broods were of an even sex ratio when they were first put in the growing on tank, but, despite seeing no bodies, there were way more females when the broods were sold. As they were different sizes I think the smaller males were 'nobbled' by the bigger tougher ones, hence the preponderence of girls.
