Since there’s multiple feet of snow outside, I’ve been sitting inside trying to come up with creative things to occupy my time. Today, I pulled out our old video camera and headed into the fishroom. I lucked upon some interesting activity going on in my 50G with the colony of Apistogramma baenschi ‘Inka 50’ . First, I have a video of a female in full bright yellow coloration guarding a little patch of territory she’s carved out underneath some Blyxa japonica stems.

Next, I caught two males displaying to each other, with the largest, most dominate one eventually chasing the other away. This happens all of the time, and doesn’t usually end up with anyone getting injured. It’s interesting to me how in both of these videos, the Apistogramma only cares about other cichlids. They never chase away the other tetras. (This would change if they were actually protecting fry.)

Finally, after the male-to-male domination display earlier, his female approaches him doing a kind of odd-looking dance to indicate that she’s not a threat. Recognizing this, he lets her go into their patch of Blyxa that he’s protecting.

The behaviors of these cichlids provide unending fascination to me as I enjoy my aquariums during a  cold wintry day. Comments welcome!

I just wanted to share a couple photos of the new inhabitants in my 75G aquarium. After finding a good home for my Blue Spotted Sunfish, I decided that I would like to keep Angelfish again. This time, rather than just getting the various commercially bred color variations, I wanted to get ones with the wild coloration. I feel the natural coloration with the vertical black bars are the most elegant looking Angelfish of all. I was fortunate to have another GWAPA member turn me onto a breeder.

The breeder imports and breeds wild Peruvian angelfish to keep the gene pool healthy for their other various color variations. They also sell of some of the offspring from their live imports. Finding this out, I bought 7 first generation (F1) domestically bred wild angelfish. The breeder sent 8 fish, and they all looked fantastic, even in the bag.

At first in the tank, the fish hid every time I came into the room, but after a week of feeding them, they have really warmed up to me, and are starting to follow me up and down the tank when I’m working in my fish room. Right now, the Angelfish are the only mid-level swimming fish that I have in this aquarium. I still have my Nannacara, red-lizard catfish, and L279 bristlenosed plecos, so the bottom level is covered. I’m having a hard time settling on a small schooling fish to act as attractive dithers for the Angelfish. Suggestions welcome!

Last fall, I bought a dozen Vietnamese White Clouds in an auction at a Capital Cichlid Association’s meeting. I have never kept these fish before, but was always tempted by them in the fish stores. The one thing I never realized was how magnificent their fins can be until I put the group in my 20L and the males started displaying. In the stores, the fish just seem to hover in place, but in my tank, the males are constantly chasing each other around.

Supposedly these fish are very easy to breed, but I have not yet seen any eggs or fry in my aquarium. It’s possible that some loaches are taking care of any eggs that might be in the tank. These White Clouds seem to be fantastic fish for the planted aquarium. In addition, they can tolerate slightly cooler temperatures, so you don’t necessarily have to keep a heater in your aquarium. There is also a long-finned version of this fish which is even more impressive.

I wanted to post a small update on my 75G since my latest post. In that post I talked about how my original intent was to make three separate mounds with pathways between them. I still have that, but the more I looked at the tank, the more I felt that the right side wasn’t strong enough. So, I pulled out the remaining pieces of African bogwood that I had, and started toying around.

75G: Click for Larger Image

What I ended up with was an arch connecting the two mounds on the right. The mounds themselves haven’t changed, but the archway adds more height, making the right side the dominant side of the aquascape. The arch also mirrors a smaller arch on the left side. The only downside is that this essentially turned the scape into a two mound aquascape again, which is what I was originally trying to avoid. That said, I think it’s unique enough to let it grow in for awhile. Also, the  Glosso is starting to spread rapidly, and the Cryptocoryne and Trident Java Fern are slowly starting to recover from being moved around and hydrogen peroxide sprayed for algae. Comments welcome!

Sometime before the holidays, a pair of my generic bristlenosed plecos dug a hole under one of the rocks in my 50G aquascape and produced a spawn of 15-30 baby plecos. I knew they were nesting because I could see the parents initially fanning the ceiling of the rock where they dug their cave, presumably keeping the water fresh around all of their eggs. A couple of weeks later I noticed a slew of baby plecos clutching to the top glass all around the tank.

They hung around the glass for several weeks, but now they seem to have dispersed throughout the tank. In the picture above you can see three plecos cleaning the top of the largest rock in my aquascape. Obviously, the fish are still not huge as they are dwarfed by an adult Amano Shrimp. If anyone has any suggestions on what to feed these guys to grow them up a bit faster, I’d love to know. So far, I’ve just been feeding them algae wafers, and I feed the other fish in the tank frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. Comments on anyone else’s pleco breeding experiences are welcome!