Re: Husbandry of A. panduro

[Kathy Olson <kathy@thekrib.com>]

Don (aka Zman)  :)

Very cool to hear what you can spawn in different size tanks.  I like to
store this info away as what can work.

I use to do 10 gallons, with occasional sawed off tens as 6 gallons or so,
had some spawn in that as well.  When I visited Soares and later when he
was up at my fish room we discussed 20's.  He said I should switch or
consider it.  I did eventually switch out, nicer to grow plants in 20's as
well.  Also, these days with my hours I can't do weekly water changes and
the 20's are more stable water wise, I can neglect them a bit, and not
worry the female or male will kill each other, or that they will die.
Not that I advocated 20's and less frequent water changes, out of
necessity it has worked well for me.  The down side is now I have less
tanks, and hence keep less species of fish.

I think the key thing is plant density.  Collecting these guys sometimes I
would only be in 2-3 inches of water.  When I hit 6 inches I was out of
apisto range and catching other things I was less interested in.  I could
get all I wanted by collecting in ankle deep or shallower water. 
 Found some beautiful
Cory. pygmaeus in 1-2 inches, just incredible.
It blew my mind how shallow they were, and I collected in the wet season
when the densities are low.

So it makes sense that small tanks should work well.

When I do high density fish, high density plants help a lot as well.

Take Care
Kathy


On Sat, 29 Jan 2000 WnyZman@aol.com wrote:

> Hi Kathy,   You knew the Z-Man would answer. Of my 76 tanks I have only 
> 13-5gal, 51- 10 or 12 gal (12 gal of the home-made variety) and the rest are 
> larger. My article I sent you was titled "Apsitogrammas MY Way) and I do mean 
> MY. I the 5's I am breeding A. agassisi (2 varieties), A. cacatuoides, A. 
> gibbiceps, A. steindachneri & Blue Rams. I have found that the Apisto species 
> with the high dorsal such as A. meinkeni, A. iniridae AND a few others such 
> as the A. nijsseni you mention do need much more room but I can only give 
> them a 10 with lots of cover. Funny thing is Taeniacara candidi which is 
> smaller than most all if not all Apistos, I need a "30 breeder" to 
> successfully keep them from killing each other. But they spawn OK.
>     I guess what I can do, you can't do & what you can do, I can't do. 
> Whenever I get some fish from another breeder, they tell me just how to do it 
> but it never works me, so I  (and we) have to experiment until we find out 
> what works for us. I am sure that no two fishroom spawing set-ups are the 
> same. If everyone bred their fish the same way, we all would have 100's of 
> Apisto fry that we can't unload. Getting back to the 5's, many times I select 
> a soon to spawn pair from a larger tank and put them in the 5 only until the 
> eggs are laid and out comes the male. I have been doing this very 
> successfully with some A. cacatuoides I have been working with, trying to 
> come up with a nice strain of "Orange Flash".
>     Don "Z-Man" Zilliox
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
> For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
> email apisto-request@listbox.com.
> Search http://altavista.digital.com for "Apistogramma Mailing List Archives"!
> 




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
email apisto-request@listbox.com.
Search http://altavista.digital.com for "Apistogramma Mailing List Archives"!