At both the Catfish Convention and the Aquafest auction, I picked up a bag of Ancistrus sp. L279 dwarf bushy-nosed plecos. After keeping them for other a year, I think this species is a fantastic match for a planted aquarium. They max out in length around 4 inches so they’re not going to inadvertently uproot plants from their size. Mine are not shy, so I see them on wood or lounging on open substrate, and they’re fairly active algae eaters. Plus, they’re very attractive fish with white markings on the tips of their tail, and many have very nice spots on their body. I’m guessing that the spots are a gender distinction because some of mine have very pronounced ones, and others not so much.

I don’t have any with huge sections of tentacles/growths on their snout, but they do have some small barbels. I’m hoping that as my latest batch grows up, they’ll develop these further. I’ve seen this species posted on Aquabid, sometimes called Ancistrus sp. ‘Huaca Mayo,’ so if you come across this listing, give them a try — they’re a great little ancistrus!

I have been keeping Apistogramma sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ for some time now. I originally received them from Rob in GWAPA, trading him my Apistogramma panduros for six juveniles. While not as flashy as the panduros, they’re still very attractive fish. Their specific taxonomy has yet to really be nailed down. Kullander has named one species formerly know as ‘Rotpunkt’ as Apistogramma alacrina, but it’s likely that this does not describe the most common color morph in the hobby. There are also other color morphs named A. sp. ‘Puerto Nariño’ and A. sp. ‘Schwarsaum’ that are likely just variations on A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt.’

The Rotpunkt are very timid fish in my experience. I’ve been trying to get semi-decent pictures of these fish for months, but every time I attempted to setup my photo gear, they spent the next hour toward the back of the tank out of view. I finally managed to take these shots last week after setting everything up, and occasionally revisiting the tank throughout the day to snap some pictures.

I have a couple of dominant males in the tank (shown above), and thus they have paired up with a few of the different females. I don’t know how many spawns I’ve had, but suffice to say that they don’t seem to be that picky about their breeding conditions. One of the juveniles (shown below) is just starting to color up. I suspect that he’ll probably keep this coloration for some time unless I move him from the tank to claim his own territory.

The females are attractive fish, having more black bars on their side than many of the apistogramma I have kept. When spawning, they become an absolutely stunning yellow. Just like the A. cacatuoides, they really seem to like the crevices provided by the porous mossy rock.

The Red Lizard Catfish, or Hemiloricaria sp. ‘Red’ (L10a), is my new favorite catfish. It’s a whiptail catfish, but stays much smaller than your typical whiptail. This fish tops out around 4 inches in length, making them a wonderful catfish for all but the smallest of tanks. I bought three of these fish last fall at the Catfish Convention from a vendor out of Erie, PA.

Native to the Rio Tocantins in Brazil, I thought that these fish would fit in nicely with my Apistogramma cacatuoides. They’re very active fish, constantly scurrying along the rocks, glass, and substrate looking for something to eat. They’re not aggressive at all, and the cichlids don’t seem to bother them, even when the cichlids are spawning. I’m really hoping that some vendors at AquaFest 2007 will have more of these so that I can stock several more in my tanks. I haven’t tried breeding them yet, but it has been done, so if I do get more, I may dedicate a small tank to that purpose.

I’ve kept Apistogramma cacatuoides for some time now in my 75G tank. I started with a trio of the ‘triple red’ color morph. After a few successful spawns, my brilliant male died of seemingly unknown causes. My local fish store had just gotten in wild A. cacatuoides so I decided to try one with my ‘triple red’ females. Before long they spawned, and I now have a small breeding colony of at least 12-15 fish in my 75G community tank.

It’s really been fascinating to watch how the triple-red coloration has mixed with the wild male’s drab color. Some of the males, like the one above, only retain a tiny bit of orange on their dorsal fin. Others, have darker bodies, with more pronounced color in their dorsals. (below)

Then, some of them have orange blotches on their tail fins. It’s quite possible that this one below is actually a female, but you can see the coloration nevertheless.

The black and orange checkerboard pattern is starting to show up on this male’s tail fin, and there’s more orange on the dorsal fin, with slightly more color on the bottommost fins.

Finally, I also have 1-2 nice specimens where the tail and dorsal fins are totally checkered with orange and black. This fish very much approximates the original male that I started with.

The females themselves are not ugly fish, but are very similar to other female apistogramma. I’m fortunate to constantly enjoy the breeding coloration of at least one pair of fish at any given time. I’m amazed by the small crevices these females fit themselves into in the rocks. They’ve located hollow areas in rocks that I never knew had hollow areas.

I’ve also found that these are not shy fish. Unlike some other apistos that I’ve kept, they come right up to the tank when I approach, and usually stare me down until I feed them. They’re not terribly aggressive fish, even when breeding. They’ll definitely try to defend their territory, but most of the time, I see 5-6 hanging around the same area. I’ve always liked dwarf cichlids because they give you the ability to keep colonies of a single species in a modest-sized aquarium. The behavior patterns definitely change in this situation, and that’s interesting to note.

If you haven’t kept cichlids before, Apistogramma cacatuoides is an excellent beginner cichlid. They’re easily obtained from most fish stores, will readily breed in most water, and exhibit all of the same behaviors that people love from cichlids.

So often, all we tend to show off are our pristine looking aquariums, with algae-free leaves, and beautiful fish. I try and show those pictures (as few as they may be), but more than that, I like to share everything else along the way, even if it might be a little embarrassing or not quite perfect. Well, here is another such example. I decided to feature a few of my less-than-ideal fish today. I’m sure we’ve all had them. You get that perfect fish home from the fish store. You’re proud to show it off to your friends, and after a few years in your tank, you notice that once graceful fish has a spine that nears 90 degrees, and it just kind of hovers around the tank being unable to swim. Well, I have a couple of these situations.

Case 1: Blind Fish

I don’t remember buying a fish without an eye, so this must have happened somewhere along the way. Presumably, the poor guy knocked his eye on a rock or piece of equipment, and wasn’t able to find it in time to have the ER sew it back on. Nevertheless, he’s an otherwise normal specimen that schools with the other fish, and seems happy.

Case 2: Siamese Endler

It’s amazing how fast Endler’s breed. You start with a few pairs, and before you know it, you’re stuck with hundreds of these guys in your tanks. Mathematically speaking, you’re bound to see a few funny ones along the way. Well, here is the most bizarre one I’ve ever seen. This female was born perfectly healthy. As she grew up, I noticed a growth on the underside of her belly. As she continued to grow, so did the growth. Once it got larger, it was obvious that this wasn’t just a tumor of sorts, but another fish body altogether! Not only that, but there is an extra set of pelvic fins growing off of that body that she appears to be able to control. I’ve had her for at least 6 months, maybe a year, and she has shown no other abnormal behavior. Amazing!

So, I’ve shared some of my embarrassing fish. Please do the same via comments or email.

I’ve been fairly busy lately, so besides some regular tank maintenance, I haven’t made any significant changes to my tanks. So, with that in mind, I just wanted to share a few photos I got of my Rummy-nose Tetras. These guys are usually pretty skittish in my tank, such that when I walk into the room, they all scatter into the far corners of the tank. I imagine this might have something to do with the fact that I’ve had my hands in their tank more often recently.

Rummy-nose Tetra – front angled shot at 100mm f/11.

Rummy-nose Tetra – side shot at 100mm f/11.

This was posted on the forums, but I wanted to re-emphasize its importance. It appears that the native habitat of the Galaxy Rasbora is being threatened due to overfishing by exporters of the aquarium fish. I’m not really sure what we, as hobbiests, can do to help except to avoid buying Galaxy Rasboras that aren’t captive bred. Unfortunately, most LFS’ don’t know or display such information.

I’m a little bit conflicted because as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently purchased a bunch of these beautiful fish after coming across a deal I couldn’t refuse. I’ve been feeding them black-worms, so now I think I’m going to do my best to breed these guys. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of information about their spawning parameters due to their newness to the hobby. Please comment if you know how to breed these fish.

Update: I manage to come across a link to another site that details how they’ve successfully bred the Galaxy Rasboras. Here’s the link: http://www.aquamoss.net/Articles/Microrasbora-sp-Galaxy.htm

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.

After work today, I decided to drop by the House of Tropicals since I haven’t been there in a few months. It didn’t hurt that I had a couple of gift certificates to spend there from Christmas. I had planned to just pickup some supplies and fertilizers, but I had to first do my obligatory walk through all of the fish aisles. In one of the aisles I came across a tank full of galaxy rasboras. I hadn’t previously seen these fish in person, but I’ve certainly heard plenty about them. I marveled at the tank for a bit, and then moved on. Shortly thereafter, I came across another tank of slightly smaller galaxy rasboras priced at just $3.98/fish. Well, I know most LFS’ sell these fish for around $10/fish, so I decided to jump on them. I snatched up 18 fish, got my 10% club discount, and came home.

I had to clean out one of my 10G tanks of all (or as many as I could catch) of the Endlers that were in there, to make room for the new rasboras. I don’t know a whole lot about these fish, but apparently they need soft water, pH in the 6.3-7.3 range and 10 dH. Those parameters aren’t too far off from my tap water, so hopefully they do just fine with that. I need to figure out what to feed them. A few Internet sources say that small live foods are preferable. I have blackworms on hand, but they may be too large for them right now. I’ll have to hatch out some baby brine shrimp. If anyone knows anything else about these cool fish, please comment.

The apistogramma viejita are my prize pickup from the 2006 Catfish Convention. They were setup in “fish room 2,” which was occupied by a series of tank from a breeder in New Jersey. I was amazed by the size of the fish they had available, with both the male and female being full grown at time of purchase.

Right now, these fish are in a tank by themselves with just a sponge fish, and a few odds and ends as far as plants go. They’ve have been, by far, the most personable fish I’ve kept,

always coming over to the front of the tank whenever I enter the room. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that they’re used to having people walking around their tank, but I always suspect that they happen to like the blackworms I’ve been feeding them.

As beautiful as these fish are, I hope I’m able to get them to spawn pretty soon.