Apistos and cross breeding

Bdoggy · Oct 5, 2022

So, I'm having a hard time getting a breeding pair... I do have a male Cacatuoide dbl red I believe...
Is it possible to breed him with females of other species like borelii or tri faciata?...
I can get a male and female borelii but they would be like brother and sister. Soo that would be bad right?
Thanks guys,
B

GaryE · Oct 5, 2022

Thankfully, they won't hybridize.

Odds are, the pairs we buy in stores probably are siblings anyway, It's not great if you want to maintain a line for many generations, but if you are thinking of creating hybrids, I doubt longterm breeding is the goal.

A male cacatuoides will probably beat up on borellii. The size difference is considerable and they have the same space needs - which equals unequal conflict.

Bdoggy · Oct 5, 2022

GaryE said:
Thankfully, they won't hybridize.

Odds are, the pairs we buy in stores probably are siblings anyway, It's not great if you want to maintain a line for many generations, but if you are thinking of creating hybrids, I doubt longterm breeding is the goal.

A male cacatuoides will probably beat up on borellii. The size difference is considerable and they have the same space needs - which equals unequal conflict.

Creating hybrids was not my goal, just a thought.. I would really like a breeding pair of tri faciata. However I'm not finding any online stores that have them in stock and will deliver to my location.
But I do have a store about 40 minutes away that has juvenile borelii in stock....
I do have friends that will buy the babies and my local spot will offer cash or store credit for them

GaryE · Oct 5, 2022

I've bred somewhere between 30 and 40 Apisto species, including some of the expensive rarities. If I were to go back to Apistos, borellii would be at the top of my list. Small, adaptable, hardy, available and beautiful. That's hard to beat.

Bdoggy · Oct 6, 2022

GaryE said:
I've bred somewhere between 30 and 40 Apisto species, including some of the expensive rarities. If I were to go back to Apistos, borellii would be at the top of my list. Small, adaptable, hardy, available and beautiful. That's hard to beat.

I did find a online retailer that will ship to me... It will run about $70 to get a pair shipped. And to be honest, after gas it will run me about that to go pick up the borellii... The ortegai papa and mcmasteri redneck are especially appealing... But maybe I should just get the borelii because they wouldn't have to ship across the country.... But man the ortegai are beautiful.

GaryE · Oct 7, 2022

So buy several more tanks, and get mcmasteri too!

I kept ortegai before they were described, and they really do look that good. The males get largeish, for Apistos. I wasn't able to breed that one.

I try to be helpful.

Bdoggy · Oct 7, 2022

GaryE said:
So buy several more tanks, and get mcmasteri too!

I kept ortegai before they were described, and they really do look that good. The males get largeish, for Apistos. I wasn't able to breed that one.

I try to be helpful.

I appreciate the advice... I think I will start with borellii... I'm fairly new to the hobby and it's probably best.

GaryE · Oct 7, 2022

It is the most forgiving, along with cacatuoides, for water. As long as the water isn't too hard, it can thrive, where some other Apistos really need soft.

Bdoggy · Oct 7, 2022

GaryE said:
It is the most forgiving, along with cacatuoides, for water. As long as the water isn't too hard, it can thrive, where some other Apistos really need soft.

Here they are... Just got home

anewbie · Oct 8, 2022

Bdoggy said:
So, I'm having a hard time getting a breeding pair... I do have a male Cacatuoide dbl red I believe...
Is it possible to breed him with females of other species like borelii or tri faciata?...
I can get a male and female borelii but they would be like brother and sister. Soo that would be bad right?
Thanks guys,
B

It is possible to cross breed in the same group; but most of hte time the frys are not viable and it is highly frowned upon. For domestic borelli many of them are 'brother' and sister in some sense.... it is good to mix them from different sources or even with wc... though often people want to keep wc from specific locations 'pure'.

Another apisto like fish you could try is pucallpaensis - technically not an apisto they are slightly smaller than borelli but also relatively adaptable. It would be helpful if you knew your water parameters (gh/kh/tds) as sufficiently hard well water for example no sa cichlid is going to be happy but you could try rainbow or other small ca cichild who prefer the harder water. Here are a couple of pictures of borelli, agasii and pucallpaensis that i have...

Bdoggy · Oct 9, 2022

I went with borellii. I understand they are able to handle hard water. Which is what I have here..
Here is the info from the city website
TDS in ppm= 396
Hardness as CaC03= 198
PH= 7.7
When I use test strips everything except GH is at the max the strip will read.
I have a Cacatuoide and now the 2 borellii...in different tanks.. So we'll see how they do.
I have the borellii pair by themselves in their tank and the female actually seems to be the dominant fish. I'm going to add some tetras or something tomorrow to see if I can break up some of the aggression.

anewbie · Oct 9, 2022

If things don't work you might consider some of the ca (central america) dwarf cichlid that like hard water; while cockatoo and borelli are white water fishes and can handle harder water than many other species of apisto; there is a limit as to what is healthy for them... the same is true for other sa fishes such as many species of tetra; pencil filsh; cat fishes; ....

GaryE · Oct 9, 2022

I bred borellii in what I saw as hard water for an Apistogramma, but my tds was 120, and my hardness was 140. The minerals are a form of birth control for these fish. It isn't clear if sperm dies from harder water, if egg shells harden beyond breaking, or if eggs harden too rapidly to be fertilized. Either way, at 140ppm, a fish that would normally have 50 fry would give me 10.
The softwater Apistos simply couldn't breed in the tap at my old house. I had to get it down to 40-50ppm for many species. I doubt there will be a lot of breeding in your water, but there's always a chance the specific minerals involved work differently. You can only try.

And if you can get Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis, do it! Not much colour there, but they are a delight to watch.

anewbie · Oct 9, 2022

GaryE said:
I bred borellii in what I saw as hard water for an Apistogramma, but my tds was 120, and my hardness was 140. The minerals are a form of birth control for these fish. It isn't clear if sperm dies from harder water, if egg shells harden beyond breaking, or if eggs harden too rapidly to be fertilized. Either way, at 140ppm, a fish that would normally have 50 fry would give me 10.
The softwater Apistos simply couldn't breed in the tap at my old house. I had to get it down to 40-50ppm for many species. I doubt there will be a lot of breeding in your water, but there's always a chance the specific minerals involved work differently. You can only try.

And if you can get Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis, do it! Not much colour there, but they are a delight to watch.

FYI: I've been told it has to do with the egg shell. ... as for an interactive dwarf cichlid i'm super happy with my nannacara anomala. I'm not sure if the other species of nannacara have similar behavior but he is far more dynamic than any of the dozen of apistogramma i've kept.

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Apistos and cross breeding

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