A year or two ago, GWAPA placed a group order for a number of apistogramma. In that order, I got about 6 apistogramma borellii fish. I successfully bred these guys in a 20G high and had at couple generations going. Then, unfortunately, while I was in California at the AGA, my CO2 tank

Apistogramma borellii female with babies (lower right)

dumped the remainder of the canister into this aquarium, and killed off all of my adult fish. All of the smaller fish in the tank survived, including 5-6 borellii babies, which at the time were not sexable. I decided to dedicate a 20G long tank to try and get a new population going. After a couple months of blackworm feeding to get the fish in good breeding shape, I finally noticed the drab juevenilles coloring up — bright yellows and blues! I noticed that a pair formed, which kept 2-3 other males to the outer parts of the tank. Then, this weekend I finally see the female hovering around with a handful of babies. To get an idea of perspective, this female fish is probably only 1.5 inches long. The babies are mere millimeters. Those large looking foreground plants are marselia quadrafolia! It seems that the female has taken to guarding the fry. I haven’t seen the male near them yet.

I got home this evening, and I noticed that my apistogramma cacatuoides pair was acting a little bit. The female had sectioned off the middle of the tank, guarding a bunch of anubias roots. Upon further examination, I saw that she had a small shoal of baby apisto. fry! I immediately ran and got my video recorder, and tried to record the event. Unfortunately, you can’t see any of the babies, but if you look closely, you should be able to see the mother acting quite standoffish. I also zoomed out a bit, to give a better overall of the tank layout itself. The camera angle is shot from the right side of the tank.