At the last CCA meeting that I attended, I picked up a pair of Apistogramma similis that the speaker had collected himself when in Bolivia. I’m hoping that they really are this species because they don’t exactly look like the pictures in my Cichlid Atlas Vol. 2, but they aren’t that far off either. In any case, Apistogramma similis is quite similar to Apistogramma inconspicua, with a different number of dorsal spines. The extent to which this species is distributed is unknown, being found a couple jungle rivers in the Bolivian province of Beni.

I don’t expect these guys to be terribly difficult to breed in my 75G aquarium, and hope that I’m able to garner a small population of them. These aren’t the prettiest apistos available, but still have their appeal, and if my juvenile specimens color up a bit, they’ll be nice to look at nevertheless. I’ll post updated pictures of these guys as they mature.

Last weekend, I purchased a pair of Apistogramma hongsloi ‘Super Rostrich’ from fellow CCA members, TwoFishGuyz. I had been looking at a number of West African cichlids for my 75G tank, but I came across these guys, and decided to stick with my beloved Apistogramma.

Apistogramma hongsloi ‘Super Rostrich’ are a captive bred strain of A. hongsloi that are selected to have more vivid coloration than their wild kin. This particular strain also has longer lyre-tailed fins. As far as Apistos go, this particular species gets fairly large at 3-4″ for males, similar to other members of the Macmasteri group, such as A. veijita. Despite still being fairly young, you can see the potential coloration of the male in the photo above.

As usual, the female is much less impressive (shown above), exhibiting a somewhat awkward body shape, and having the typical black markings on the front of their dorsal and pelvic fins, with an otherwise, mostly yellow body. So far, mine haven’t really seemed to bond, but hopefully in time, love will set in. *laugh*

Despite the lack of mating behavior, they’re both fairly lively fish. The male is especially active, swimming up and down the glass, looking at me. Hopefully, after plenty of live foods, they will settle in, and produce a nice little colony of Apistogramma for my 75G.

I just wanted to share a few shots of my Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish, or Melanotaenia praecox. I have a school of 13 fish in my 40G tank right now, and they’re great for photography, as they tend to hover in place against the current. The school I have right now is mostly females, and I haven’t had any fry survive, probably due to the Apistogramma that are also in the tank.

Here’s a close-up of one of the males in the tank. These fish are still relatively young, and haven’t fully developed the steep forehead that’s common among adult rainbowfish. The males seem to develop a slightly more pronounced arc than the females do.

Below is one of the females, identified by the yellow in her fins, whereas the males fins have a reddish hue. The iridescent blue tint of their scales are even more intense and shiny in person, than in these photos. If you haven’t kept these fish, they’re perfect for planted aquariums, and wonderful community fish — just make sure to keep them happy by having schools of 6 or more.

Over the past few days, I have noticed that my two females in the 40G have been bright yellow in coloration, and have remained very close to their caves. These are tell-tale signs that they’ve been spawning. It looks like the first female’s fry are now free swimming!

Right now, there is a sizable group of fry, with at least 20-30, but it could be even more. They move around so much, and they all look the same, that it’s near impossible to count. They spend most of the day grazing on tiny organisms and detritus throughout the tank, and especially on the porous mossy rock that contains all kinds of nooks and crannies for them to sort through.

Some of them even seem to take refuge in the small holes formed in the volcanic rock. I don’t plan on trying to remove the fry from the tank, so essentially it’s up to their parents and the cover of these rocks and plants to grow them up. I will, however, prepare a batch of baby brine shrimp for them this week to help them grow up big and strong.

I noticed some increased fin flashing activity in my 40G tank, and decided to try and capture a few good shots of my Apistogramma sp. ‘Rotpunkt.’ Some of the shots are better than others, but there’s no doubt that these are some pretty fish, whose colors especially pop under the new 2x96W lights!

Apistogramma sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Male Flashing Fins

A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Male Front On

A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Female in Spawning Colors

A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Male Close Up. Notice how brilliant the blue on the face is.

A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Non-Dominant Male. Not nearly as impressive, huh?

A. sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ Male Coming at You.

I should have used a flash above the tank to shoot at a better quality ISO, but I always end up spooking the fish in order to set that up.

Thanks for looking! Any comment/critiques are welcome, as always!

Aquafest 2007 was much more than just a set of lectures. In addition to being a fun, social event, CCA also hosted a fish show, showcasing over 100 top-quality fish from around the area. As you can see below, there was no lack of tanks. Cichlids seemed to be the most prominent type of fish on display with discus the size of dinner plates, gorgeous Africans, and even a few apistogramma making appearances. There were also a number of catfish showing.

In addition to the fish show, Ray “Kingfish” Lucas had a number of displays setup, touting products from a number of great aquarium-related manufacturers. Tony Orso was also setup, with a few other vendors, such as Anubias Design, at the festival.

Besides introducing Eric Do, GWAPA’s big event of the weekend was the aquascaping demonstration, led by myself and recent APC tank-of-the-month winner, Jeff U (bigstick120). Aaron T, Dave W., and Eric Do also helped field questions while we were presenting.

We gave a pretty straight forward aquascaping demonstration, trying to mimic Amano’s demonstration at the 2004 AGA convention that GWAPA hosted. Jeff added some brand new Seachem Flourite Black to our 37G Oceanic tank, and began setting up the hardscape. I did my best to explain that you often want to group rocks into odd numbered groupings, and avoid symmetry when possible.

Once the hardscape was in place, Jeff and I started planting HC in the foreground, along with some Blyxa japonica, anubias barteri var. ‘nana‘ and downoi in the midground.

We explained how you want to plant the tank mostly dry, with just enough water to compact the substrate for easier planting. After planting all of stems it was time to fill up the tank.

Eric Do helped out with the chore of filling up the tank, using the empty Flourite Black bag as a shield to disturb the substrate as little as possible. (I mentioned yesterday how Eric is a great guy, right?) I continued planting, and also added some Java moss to the branches of the manzanita.

Finally, with the help of a H.O.T. magnum micron filter, the water cleared, and we were left with the aquascape below. It didn’t come perfectly, but it was enough to inspire plenty of questions from the folks attending. This entire setup was raffled off the next day, with lucky winner Rodney C., winning the raffle.

The auction itself was a HUGE event. Registration started around 9:00am. All items were auctioned off by 7:45pm. Yes, the auction ran non-stop from 10:00am to 7:45pm, selling at least2000 individual items by my estimate. Some club members believe that it may be the largest aquarium auction ever in the history of the three clubs participating. If you missed it, you missed an opportunity to grab anything from books, tanks, equipment, fish, plants, invertebrates, substrate, etc. at great prices.

I didn’t come away empty-handed, either. I won the following:

Fish:
Nannochromis nudiceps
Ancistrus sp. L279 “Huaco Mayo”
Corydoras Paleatus

Plants:
Crypt. wendtii “Dewitt”
Anubias sp. “Gasser”
Anubias barteri var. ‘nana eyes’

I’ll post more about where all of those things went later this week.

Last weekend I finally decided to rescape my 40G tank. It had once again become a mishmash of plants from various local collecting sites, and exotics from GWAPA meetings. Some Vallisneria americana that was a mere 4-6″ in the wild had sent out runners throughout the tank, and coiled its 2-4 foot long leaves across the surface. Plus, there were a bunch of fish in this tank that I wanted to pull out to their own tank in order to more easily get rid of them to another club member or local store.

I wanted the new scape to be dominated by rock. The Apistogramma sp. ‘Rotpunkt’ need the extra caves to spawn and hide in, and in general, I just like rock scapes. This time, I tried to be conscious of how tall some of my foreground plants will become so that my rocks would be large enough to still stay visible with thick undergrowth. I moved my huge Blyxa aubertii from the right to the left back, with Micranthemum umbrosum next to that, some Ludwigia sp. ‘Guinea’ in the middle, a Potamegeton species from Florida, and then Hygrophila sp. ‘Sarawak’ in the back right. Various crypts line the left side, with anubias, Blyxa japonica, and Eriocaulaceae sp. ‘Type 2? making up the midground. Ranalisma rostrata makes up the entire foreground.

It has a long way to go to fill in, and I have a feeling that some of the background plants will come and go, but I’d love to hear what everyone’s first impressions are.

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.