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.

I obtained a breeding pair of apistogramma panduro from another apistogramma aficionado in the Capital Cichlid Association, a local cichlid club. These beautiful fish have a 40G breeder tank to themselves, with a few rummynose tetra as dither fish. Shortly after introducing them to the tank, they colored up, and started protecting eggs.

After the eggs hatched, and the fry became free swimming, I fed the fry infusoria, and had plenty of java moss for them to hide from the tetra.

Inevitably, a few of the fry were picked off, but I have a decent number of them left, as adults, now. I’ve kept a few different types of apistos, and I think this particular species is one of the most beautiful ones available. The pictures don’t do this fish justice, but the deep purple body, and iridescent orange fins are incredible. The females look pretty much like most female apistos, except them have the same red border on their tail fin.

They seem to be a relatively peaceful apistogramma species, expressing far less aggression than other apistogrmma to the dither fish, even when spawning. Actually, they seem to spook fairly easily, hiding when I first approach the tank.

Last weekend at the Catfish Convention, I picked up two pairs of dwarf crayfish. They weren’t labeled so I don’t know their exact species, but I’m guessing they’re cambarellus shufeldtii. I was told that they’re pretty easy to breed, so I have them in a tank all by themselves with some wood and java moss, so we’ll see what happens. Thus far, they seem to be pretty timid creatures. If I get near the tank, you see a quick flurry of activity while they flee from wherever they were at to their new “hiding place.” Once there, they tend to stay perfectly still until I leave. I had a scare the night that I put them in the tank. I came back about 2 hours later and saw one of them laying sideways, motionless, and dead. It took me a second to see something behind it, chewing on the dead one. Infact, it wasn’t dead at all. It molted!

If I do pretty well with these guys, I might try splurging for those fancy orange dwarf crayfish that are going around aquabid these days. Before I do that, I’m going to have to figure out how to sex the ones I have. The guy I bought them from showed that the males have an extra pair of legs under the tail, where the females do not. What seemed quite apparent at the moment, isn’t so obvious when I look at them after getting them home. If anyone has any pointers on this, please comment.

Melanotaenia parkinsoni might be the most spectacular fish I’ve ever seen in person. Sure, there are some brilliant lake cichlids from Africa and fine looking coral reef fish around the world, but no other fish, as a juenvenille, as stopped me dead in my tracks, dropped jaw and all, in the fish store.
I was in Exotic Aquatics, walking down the aisle, and instantly knew I had to have this fish. As it has grown, the coloration of this fish has only intensified. It is always displaying to the other males in the tank to show its dominance. If you ever have an opportunity to keep this fish, do it.

I bought this glossolepis incisus as a very small, young fish. As you can see, the Red Rainbow has a number of silver flecks on it’s body. When I bought this fish, its entire body was silver, and its body shape was nowhere near as rounded as it is now. It basically looked like an odd shape minnow. Well, as you can see in this bad picture, the fish is still odd shaped, but now much more brilliant than a normal minnow.

This is the only rainbowfish I have in the glossolepis genus. My other rainbowfish are all melanotaenia, nevertheless, this fish has no trouble displaying and competing with the melanotaenia males to become the dominant fish in the tank. It’s really quite a spectacular thing to watch.