Apistogramma bitaeniata

[Dan_G_Calgary]

I really need to start and maintain a thread called 'stupid things Dan has done today'.

So I've had these guys set up in a tank forever. Wasn't ever 100% sure that I even had a male and female. Both are very timid, hide most of the time, and kind of annoying. Was contemplating today, putting them back in a community tank (I have 2 other males of these in a community set up).

So I started rooting around in their tank, seeing if they were still allive or just hiding as usual. Pulled the clay pot out. Quick look. nothing. female swam away, and the male had been hiding behind the box filter....

hmm. That female is very Very VERY yellow. Didn't I read somewhere that they get yellow like that when gaurding their spawn? Maybe I had better check that clay pot closer... the one that I had dumped the water out of and set outside the tank...

Seems like their eggs are very orange. Not far from the color of a clay pot, and easy to overlook if you are a moron like me.

I put the clay pot back in and she immediatley went back inside it, but I very much expect I killed all the eggs exposing them to air like that....

Hopefully she has a second spawn... grr. sometimes I am so dumb. (my wife says it is only when I am awake though. She says when I am sleeping, except for the snoring and gas passing, I seem much smarter...)

[CACAdmin]

Fingers crossed that the eggs will be ok. Even if not, at least you now know that they are willing to spawn and what to look for.

[Ursus sapien]

Dan, do you remember that thread a while back, something about what you most fear for your own tanks?
My answer was, in a nutshell, my own stupidity. Examples abound. Like finding fry tonight, in a set-up I'd given up on. I wonder how many I killed yesterday when I pulled most of the plants and did a 50% water change.
We all do it (well, most of us anyway). Impatience, pressure for tank space, decluttering, bad vision...
Hope things work out with the eggs.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

haha! Thanks Ursus. Yah, it's true, we do some funny stuff.

I don't think the eggs will survive, but I'll leave her to sort it out. The great part is these are wild caughts, so I am quite excited to get some fry from them.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

I believe they have spawned again! It seems awful quick, but she is very yellow, kicked the male out of the clay pot 'cave' and comes out to beat him up once in a while.

I am kind of stoked about these. This will be the first apistogramma species ever for me.

[Ursus sapien]

congrats.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Thanks. I forgot to update that the FIRST batch of eggs were indeed gone last week.

I saw her out and about a day or two later, so checked the inside of the clay pot and they were gone.

[GaryofMontreal]

I hope it works. That can be a tough group. I had a pair of A agassizi (a fish I can never spell) that spawned 17 times before I was able to get the water soft enough for egg development. I just kept thinking I had it figured out, and I didn't. I started at 140ppm (my tap in those days) and just kept cutting it with snow water, then rainwater, then snow water... I think I was at around 30ppm by the time I was able to see fry.
They then became madly prolific and everyone at the local auction got sick of them...

There are fish that breed when you put them in water, and then there are challenging creatures like those. Some of the domestic long-bodied Apistos are apparently easier, and slightly more adapted to higher mineral content water, but the wild ones are super specialized for their environment. I had the Alenquer agas, and they were worth every moment of work. Just beautiful.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

So, I think the used sand that I put in the tank has something in it that keeps stabilizing the water back to 200 TDS. I would add a gallon of < 10 ppm TDS water, and the next day or two, it was back to 200...
So I bought some pool filter sand, tore the tank down and was about to set it back up, and changed my mind.

I set them up in a 10 gallon instead. More room. Will slowly work the TDS down to see how they do. Going to start at 100 (conditioning them over to it of course), see if that takes, and if not, drop it to 50.