Re: borellii project

[Randy Carey <carey@spacestar.net>]

Its good to see someone conducting controlled experiments with fish. I do have
some comments...

1)  More important than the 25 gallon statistic are the dimensions of the tanks.
Apistos are more concerned with horizontal real estate -- especially when it
comes to matters of territory -- something that appears important to your
research.

2)  Is it just me, or are 10 Apistos too many for a typical 25 gallon tank?  I
have observced interesting behavior that came out only when I reduced the
population in a tank.  One borelli per half a square foot of "real estate" seems
to be a bit tight for them to establish natural territories.  They should survive
and spawn, but it just seems to me to be a bit too crowded for bringing out
natural behavior.

3)  What is the age of your fish when you began the experiment?  Did you get them
as fry so that their behavior will emerge within the tank?  Or are these mature
specimens with adult development already set in.

4)  What is the source of your specimens?  Are they wild caught or F1's, or from
a well-entrenched aquarium strain?  If they are several generations of captive
bred specimens, then your findings are likely to be skewwed from what you might
observe in wild-caught specimens.  Captive bred specimens undergo a different
criteria for their survival-of-the-fittest than do the fish in the wild.

5)  I suspect that the absence of plants will skew the results.  Plants,
driftwood, etc., help mark boundaries and provide refuge or release from stress.
I would be interested to see if the behavior changed based upon plants vs. no
plants.

So as I read of your project, these are five questions that were raised in my
mind.

-- Randy


jonathan wrote:

> Hi everyone! I was able to convince a professor to fund me in a 25 males/
> 25 females thesis project for my BSc, involving Apistogramma borellii. I
> have 5X 25 gallon tanks, 10 fish in each with a  1:1  sex ratio. I've got
> 5 potting sausers inverted, each with a 1 cm^2 hole, in each tank. I am
> using fine sand, no plants so I can observe the male to male competition.
>
> <snip>



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