New Apisto

[.Craig.]

Just returned from the fish shop with my first ever Apistogramma. Never owned before so looking forward to keeping them in my community tank.

just in the tank and male looks good straight away.

 

[StripySnailGirl04]

Beautiful!

 

[Rocky998]

They look amazing! Just out of curiosity I'm wondering what PH and tank size you keep them in... I would love to keep some one day

 

[.Craig.]

They look amazing! Just out of curiosity I'm wondering what PH and tank size you keep them in... I would love to keep some one day

The seem social at the minute & great to watch. I have soft water with a ph of 6.8ish. (these guys like low ph) They are in a 33 gallon tank with their own little dragon stone cave lol.

might in the future have another tank with a few pairs if this works out well.

 

[Rocky998]

The seem social at the minute & great to watch. I have soft water with a ph of 6.8ish. (these guys like low ph) They are in a 33 gallon tank with their own little dragon stone cave lol.

might in the future have another tank with a few pairs if this works out well.

Thank you! I may be able to keep these in the future but I dont know... Thanks again for sharing

 

[.Craig.]

better pics

 

[GaryE]

+
You have a breeder form Apistogramma cacatuoides. It has more red than a wild fish.

Males will get bigger, at around 9-10cm, eventually. Your female is close to breeding colours now. They are very healthy looking. He's very young.

 

[.Craig.]

+
You have a breeder form Apistogramma cacatuoides. It has more red than your a fish.

Males will get bigger, at around 9-10cm, eventually. Your female is close to breeding colours now. They are very healthy looking. He's very young.

i think they were sold as double red if memory serves me correctly. Yes I believe they are young, female looks more yellow than the pics show.

He is not showing much interest in breeding but she seems to be trying to get him to follow her. I have never kept them before but they are very interesting to watch.

 

[GaryE]

I have no idea how I ended up saying "your a fish."
Ungrammatical. If I had intended to write that, it would have been "you're a fish", a compliment in my world!

I bred them for years, and my guess is he's younger than she is, so may be a bit slow on the uptake. There are few fish more fascinating to watch. Just wait - the real show hasn't started.

 

[anewbie]

They look amazing! Just out of curiosity I'm wondering what PH and tank size you keep them in... I would love to keep some one day

those are cockatoo and do not require esp soft water. I'm hard put to put a number on it but certainly kh 4 or 5 is fine. However there are some species from the genus apistogramma that require kh near 0 and ph below 6.

 

[Rocky998]

those are cockatoo and do not require esp soft water. I'm hard put to put a number on it but certainly kh 4 or 5 is fine. However there are some species from the genus apistogramma that require kh near 0 and ph below 6.

My kh is 13 but my GH is 3

 

[GaryE]

There are double and triple red cacatuoides, but they often come from the same batch of fry. The linebreeders do a triage. For a long time, they would sell wild type females with them, which kept the hobbyist competition down.
I used to breed mine in pH 7.4, medium hard water, as cacatuoides are a more generalist species. Even wild caughts adjusted. Along with Apistogramma borellii, it's one of the few in the group that's both really pretty and easy to keep.

 

[anewbie]

My kh is 13 but my GH is 3

Good for you.

 

[anewbie]

There are double and triple red cacatuoides, but they often come from the same batch of fry. The linebreeders do a triage. For a long time, they would sell wild type females with them, which kept the hobbyist competition down.
I used to breed mine in pH 7.4, medium hard water, as cacatuoides are a more generalist species. Even wild caughts adjusted. Along with Apistogramma borellii, it's one of the few in the group that's both really pretty and easy to keep.

But i find borelli a much more interesting fish. Here is one of my males:

 

[GaryE]

borellii behaves like the books say - they can thrive in groups in a large enough tank. cacatuoides and the others are too territorial.