OP
OP
Ok my tap water is abt 25 ppm hardness so i think I’m good on that front. I don’t know the pH exactly but iirc it’s between 6.8-7.2
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Plans, Plans…
- Thread starter JackGulley
- Start date
OP
OP
According to SeriouslyFish that’s within MacMasteri parameters, although to make it perfect I could lower the pH a little
OP
OP
Plans so far:
Setup
-I can acquire a 20 long from dad’s coworker.
-Need to buy a filter and heater.
-Either sand substrate OR a some aquasoil that I bought for my other tank and never used.
Aquascape
-I can get it started with a few new plants/rocks/sticks and a few borrowed from my other tank.
-More developed aquascape will obviously come over time. I definitely want twigs and leaf litter in the tank.
Fish
-It would probably be best to start with something other than the apistos, since they’re both expensive and delicate. Neons make sense to add first.
-Have to decide where I’m sourcing apistos. I’ve heard great things about Dan’s but it’s expensive.
-Still not clear whether apistos do well with bottom feeders.
Setup
-I can acquire a 20 long from dad’s coworker.
-Need to buy a filter and heater.
-Either sand substrate OR a some aquasoil that I bought for my other tank and never used.
Aquascape
-I can get it started with a few new plants/rocks/sticks and a few borrowed from my other tank.
-More developed aquascape will obviously come over time. I definitely want twigs and leaf litter in the tank.
Fish
-It would probably be best to start with something other than the apistos, since they’re both expensive and delicate. Neons make sense to add first.
-Have to decide where I’m sourcing apistos. I’ve heard great things about Dan’s but it’s expensive.
-Still not clear whether apistos do well with bottom feeders.
Apistogramma cacatuoides are easy to keep. Put a pair (male & female) in a 2 foot tank with a cave and some plants, feed them frozen and live foods, have plants in there, give them soft water with a neutral to slightly acid pH, and they breed. I was breeding them back in the 80s and they are way more domesticated now than back then.
cacatuoides are an evolutionary generalist - unspecialized and easy to keep. Most Apistogramma species have a degree of adaption to extremes, and that's where our problem lies. They're often small fish from weird habitats, and they can't all handle different conditions. They're specialists in the survival game.
Generalists like A. cacatuoides, A. eunotus and a few others can handle almost everything.
Nannacara anomala, the golden eye, is an option. It's a dwarf Cichlid, beautiful and very adaptable. However, many individuals hate Corys.
Cleithracara maronii, the keyhole, is a great fish. Smallish, peaceful and very personable.
Generalists like A. cacatuoides, A. eunotus and a few others can handle almost everything.
Nannacara anomala, the golden eye, is an option. It's a dwarf Cichlid, beautiful and very adaptable. However, many individuals hate Corys.
Cleithracara maronii, the keyhole, is a great fish. Smallish, peaceful and very personable.
BTW… Dan’s got a whole bunch of new apisto’s in yesterday… I assume the 2nd link I posted there, will now show all the new ones… several looked pretty interesting to me.. .
OP
OP
It’s weird, I figured that, as a SA cichlid, most people would put apistos in an Amazon-style, blackwater-type tank, you know leaf litter and driftwood and not a ton of plants. But it seems like most apisto tanks I see online are just normal planted-community-tank style aquascaping. Is the blackwater enviroment not biotipe-accurate to apistos?
Apistogramma cichlids do come from blackwater but it's not always dark black. It can be a weak tea colour or anything in between. Wild caught fish like the tannins and soft acid water, whereas common captive bred species like Apistogramma cacatuoides will accept a much wider range in water chemistry due to being regularly kept in captivity over the last 40+ years.
As for leaves or plants in the tank, I prefer a few plants and it seems to help them settle down better than bare tanks, which is the environment that leaves are more likely to create (the leaves settle on the bottom and the fish swim above them).
As for leaves or plants in the tank, I prefer a few plants and it seems to help them settle down better than bare tanks, which is the environment that leaves are more likely to create (the leaves settle on the bottom and the fish swim above them).
OP
OP
Cool, that about what I was hoping the answer would be! I don’t need it to be “blackwater” proper, but I was excited to have a tea-colored, leaf-littered tank because that’s something I can’t do in my other, hardwater tank. I will make sure to get plants too.
My apisto macmasterei pair picked on the cories. Now they have their own tank.
There are blackwater and whitewater Apistos - the generalist ones tend to be whitewater (not rapids, but not tannin stained).
If you think of it, Apistogramma range all through northern South America, but also down south to Argentina. That's a vast area with a lot of different water, and a lot of different temperatures. There are no rules for these fish, except you have to look up info species by species.
Even then, I had some Apistogramma gibbiceps 30 years ago, and was told they were from blackwater. That seemed confirmed by the fish they came in with (I helped unpack the wild shipment). I could do nothing with them. They lived for a few years, with no breeding.
5 years later, I got identical looking gibbiceps, but was told they were from a whitewater habitat. They bred like clockwork in my medium hard tapwater. I had dozens. Clearly, there was evolution at work there, and the blackwater ones were becoming something different. If we check back in in a thousand years, who knows?
A. mcmasteri looks like a generalist, with its high body. But it comes from very soft water. Put it beside the usually drab A eunotus, and the body shape is similar. eunotus will breed like guppies. But if you keep these fish, they start making you want to understand what's going on. Very cool fish, those Apistos.
Even then, I had some Apistogramma gibbiceps 30 years ago, and was told they were from blackwater. That seemed confirmed by the fish they came in with (I helped unpack the wild shipment). I could do nothing with them. They lived for a few years, with no breeding.
5 years later, I got identical looking gibbiceps, but was told they were from a whitewater habitat. They bred like clockwork in my medium hard tapwater. I had dozens. Clearly, there was evolution at work there, and the blackwater ones were becoming something different. If we check back in in a thousand years, who knows?
A. mcmasteri looks like a generalist, with its high body. But it comes from very soft water. Put it beside the usually drab A eunotus, and the body shape is similar. eunotus will breed like guppies. But if you keep these fish, they start making you want to understand what's going on. Very cool fish, those Apistos.
OP
OP
What kind of filter do you think would be best for apistos? I understand they like slow water. My first tank came used with a fluval HOB, so I’ve never had to shop for filters before. My dad, who used to own an LFS, likes the Penguin biowheel filters, so I’m looking at those, but I don’t really know the pros and cons of any.
This would be in a 20 long with sand substrate.
This would be in a 20 long with sand substrate.
I always used aquaclear/fluval HOBs. I've seen a lot of underwater video of Apistos, and the water was not slow. A typical breeding set up would have a HOB rated for 40-50 gallons on a 20 long. By the time you add media and the filter runs, it isn't that fast.
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