Re: Taeniacara candidi

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

Hi Al the A.candidi you have are descendents of my
stock from a group I sent up to some friends in RI.
The line goes back about 8 years. I have outcrossed
them to wild fish and to other peoples tank raised
candidi for that matter. In fact I had a freeze and
had to have some sent to me from that group in RI.
It?s a great line of fish.

Breeding Apistogramma candidi (Yes they have changed
the name of our old friend, talk to the nomenclature
people about that stuff I?m a breeder) is actually
much easier then we often hear about. I have found
especially with my line bred strain they seem more
tolerant of their conditions then say the wild fish.
Well here is my recipe for breeding A.candidi

Environment and water conditions:
They need a very well planted tank they are very shy
and obviously there are many predators they have to
worry about in the wild. This is instinctive and if we
choose to ignore this fact we get unhappy scared fish.
This is why we often hear about how shy they are. In
my tanks the male cruises the front of his tank like a
guard dog. The reason lots of cover. For them floating
plants are especially useful. I also use lots of Java
moss. We don?t have to have a green thumb to achieve
this. Simple hardy plants like duckweed, Java moss,
and water sprite fit the bill just fine. People often
recommend dither fish but I prefer not to use them.
Why put in predators for the upcoming fry? Especially
when the real problem is that we are not providing
enough cover. Well now to the water conditions pH
3.8-4.5 ideal as you go higher in pH your broods will
get smaller and you?ll encounter egg eating and other
problems Conductivity less then 40 with a DH of 0.
Again the higher we go then we get problems. I must
admit I have had some friend?s say they were able to
breed them at a pH of 6.5. I can?t attest to this but
I?m sure they have become more tolerant. The biggest
thing is once we have the proper parameters we just
need to keep an eye on our water quality. As I have
suggested often in the past monitoring our
conductivity gives a read on this. We want to give
them frequent water changes in order to maintain a low
level of Doc?s and thus nice clean water. That?s the
key once we get that they breed like guppys. I have
even bred them in the past with a diet of 100% bbs.
Sometimes it is wise to remove the male after breeding
as the female gets nasty and sometimes the male is to
assertive and he male foil the breeding attempt. I
breed mine in prs in a 10gallon tank with great
success.


Brooding Behavior
It is often said that female candidi are poor mothers.
In my book nothing could be farther from the truth. If
we adhere to the above recomendations it has been my
experience that female candidi rival borelli females
in their intense protection of the brood. In watching
their brooding behavior I have often seen a female
signal the fry to drop to the bottom where they stop
feeding and all hit the floor sort to speak. The
female then runs off in what I beleive is her attempt
to lure the predator away from the fry. You will also
see the tell tale up and down movement the female does
to gather her young. Its like her head stays still but
she rocks her tail and body up and down. Well thats it
for now. I can keep going but man its late.

Look up in the krib as there is a wealth of info about
them there as well. Let me know how you make out with
my happy little offspring :)

Dave


--- Al Smith <alsmith1@mindspring.com> wrote:
> I just aquired 2 nice pairs of T. candidi{at a local
> auction for 7.00 for
> the bag..no one kew what they were..The auctineer
> said the were a west
> african riverine cichlid and nobody bid on them}Well
> I was excited to see
> them on the table and was willing to drop some money
> on them as I wanted
> these for awhile....also picked up 6 other bags of 8
> fry of different
> species of apistos..what a day..any ways can anyone
> give me any info on the
> candidi's as to the best water conditions and any
> trade secrets to maintain
> these delicate fish..my water paramters are ph 6.0
> hardness is about 20 ppm
> temp 80 degrees water is filtered through peat
> ..tank has bog wood and black
> sand and heavily planted and slate rock formations
> creating caves.oh it is a
> 20 long...it also contains cardinal tetras and some
> african tetras called
> Ladigesia roloffi..I have read all the info in the
> dwarf cichlids books and
> now looking for the hands on advice...Thank You all
> for all the help in the
> past .Lots of great people here and the knowledge
> gained from them is far
> better than anything you can read..Theory is good
> the experiment is where
> all the fun begins..
> 
> Al
> alsmith1@mindspring.com
> 
> 
> 
>
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