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Re: The problem with apistos



Scott,

This really surprises me. It reinforces the fact that we know very little about fish aggression, or fish behavior in general. A short time ago there was a thread on the aquatic plants mailing list regarding the American flag fish, Jordanella floridae (sp?). Some posters claimed that the fish was the very devil incarnate, being extremely destructive of both plants and fish. Others said that the fish was the sweetest of species, harming nothing and serving as a very effective consumer of hair algae!

Which judgement was correct? Probably both! How can that be? Fish sometimes respond to environmental factors in unpredictable ways. I remember my first fish tank - a 10 gallon, of course. The inhabitants included (no flames, please, all fish were small, and I was ignorant!) a green severum, a pair of firemouths, an oscar, a 'jurupari' and a neolamp. Brichardi. The Brichardi was a perfect tankmate until I added some salt to the water to battle my first case of 'ich'. He almost immediately became extremely aggressive! I eventually had to take him back to the store. Why? Did the salt make him irritable by 'bothering' him in some way, or did it make him feel so good that he began to act naturally? I'll probably never know.

Back to the rotpunkt; I have never experienced an aggression problem with this fish. I once kept a breeding group of three males and three females in a 30 gallon square tank. No cover other than flower pots and rocks, and a little java moss. They bred freely, and I never observed aggression beyond the requisite tail-slapping.

I can only think that there might be something in the water...???

Best,

Scott


From: Scott <zerelli@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: apisto@listbox.com
To: apisto@listbox.com
Subject: The problem with apistos
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:15:53 -0700 (PDT)

Wow, these are certainly agressive fish. I posted that
I had acquired a reverse trio of sp. rotpunkt. Well I
noticed that the best looking male was not very nice.
In fact he was so not nice that he tracked down the
other male in a 125 gallon, heavily planted tank and
did him in (through stress most likely as I last saw
the late male when he was eating). Unfortunately it
appears that the female has also been done in. She was
last spotted hiding in some plants near the surface
(not gasping at the surface I watched her dart out to
grab food before the aggressive male nailed her). I
have spotted the remains of what I think was the other
male (rendered a skeleton in an amazingly short time
by ghost shrimp and snails), but have never spotted
the female. I did pull a large quanitity of plants
from this tank, but was semi-careful about not
removing any fish. My question is this, how small of
space can a female use to spawn? Also, will she stay
in with the eggs or will she come out to chase away
fish that come near her hideout? It is remotely
possible that she holed up somewhere, but I suspect
the worse. Shoudl I try more females (if by small
chance I find them again) or just enjoy my one (albeit
spectacular) specimen of apisto?

Thanks,
Scott

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