Re:small trifaciata and hippolytae spawn.

["Tim Bardsley - Smith" <cichla_to_apistogramma@hotmail.com>]

Hey Dave,

i acctually dont have a copy lol, as i have a hotmail account i try to keep 
the messages down after i have read them.

Anyway i was saying It's acctually not to bad here in Australia for Apisto's 
at the moment we have seen quite a few Wild Caughts come in, with the most 
exciting being A.atahualpa, but un fortuneately no one was able to keep them 
alive. The came through 2 weeks of quarentine ok, but as soon as the got 
spred round the Apisto nut's people had them start dying off, i acctually 
drove 8 hours to pick mine up and whne i got there found out they were all 
dying, due to the fact i wanted them so very badley i decided to purchase 2 
of the last pairs that were still alive. One female was doing back flips 
before i even got her into a tank the others looked fine. Instantly the 
female went brick read when i put her in and started to display to 
everything, the males were a little interested but not to much, each day 
after that i lost 1 until there were none left. They just rolled over and 
died, no other syptoms just that listlessness thats so familiar to Apisto 
nut's. It was a shame particuly as they cost me $100 AUS per pair. But  i 
know a few people here want them pretty bad and some more are hopefully 
going to come in. While like i said before it's pretty easy to get apisto's 
in as there on the import list but for some reason we miss out on alot of 
the good stuff from Germany (the only exporter to Australia except for Asia) 
probably because of the bad exchange rate it makes some of the little more 
expensive Apisto's too much for what Australians like to pay for there fish 
:-(, and also the fact that you need to buy them in box's  so the 
wholesalers need customer for all the pairs. Anyway back to the question 
lol.

The trifaciata  are in a 12" x 18" x 18",  there are some plant and the 
substrate is river sand with a very large range in grain size. The reason 
why i genralised in the hardbess is because my hardness test kit only 
measures a minimum of 20 ppm for GH and 10ppm for KH and on  all mys Apisto 
tanks they measue under the minimum. Unfortuneately i ahve know way to 
measue conductivity. and the pH is also genralised because it vary's 
slightly between water changes. At the moment it's 7.2. I hope i answered 
eveything, as i dont have the email you sent me anymore. But anyway any help 
would be appreciated.

Now on the Hippolytae, there in a 4x18x18 with a trio of S.leucosticta who 
also have spawned. The Hippolytae are also Wild Caught and quite sizey. Of 
late acctually the female has been going through weird stages, with one 
moment defending a cave in brooding colours then the next all markings bland 
and on the other side of the tank, The male is also very very shy, even more 
shy than the Leucosticta which would get chased off by a Corey.  I almost 
never see him unless it displaying to the female or chasing her, which never 
lasts for long until he run's hiding back into all the bog wood. So far she 
has had about 8 seperate spanws i have seen and only 1 has ever produced fry 
and only produced about 15 fry, with which i removed 10 and are now doing 
well at a good 11mm at 3 weeks of age. The substrate is  agaain river sand 
but alot mroe fine than  the stuff in with the trifactiata, there are 2 
Anubias type plants. The water is treated with boiled peat water each water 
change and has a strong tea colou the pH is 5.3 but does drop below 5 
occasionally. againn hardness is below the minimum my test kit measures and 
i cant measure conductivity. Tahnks guy's for any help you can give me.

Also a quick seperate question how long would you expect it to take for 
Apisto fry to mature?

Tim

> From: David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: apisto@listbox.com
> To: apisto@listbox.com
> Subject: Re: water hardness
> Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 05:20:49 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Too many myths and wives tales in Apisto keeping folks
> sometimes we have to ask why? Yes you can use 100% ro
> water and I have used it to breed apistos in. Some
> people freak out about it having no minerals but if
> you look at the water some of our fish come from whats
> the diffrence. The key is to use it for fish then come
> from very pure water already. Another example of this
> is the use of dither fish. Though a helpful idea it
> doesn't solve our problem and it gives us another
> problem, we now have predators for the fry. The real
> answer lies in providing good cover in the form of
> floating plants. well my 2 cents
>
> Dave
>
>
> --- JerrCarol@aol.com wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >  just curious, How does one get their water down to
> > a trace hardness without
> > adding strait RO? I heard adding strait RO was a bad
> > thing. My logic says
> > that if there is already 150ppm then adding strait
> > RO would bring it down. Is
> > my logic wrong?
> >
> >        JerryB
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just 
> $8.95/month.
> http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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.


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.