FWIW I've got F1 cacatoides spawning away with reckless abandon. When they were fry, I did not go out of my way to feed them anything at all. They lived on the "bugs" in an established aquarium until they were big enough to eat bits of frozen brine shrimp, etc. And no matter that they have been exposed to flake food on an almost daily basis for months and months, they adamantly spit the stuff out. Unfortunately, up till now the other fish in the tank have got the better of the moms. But there is a half inch juvenile in there who just 'appeared' (can't be more than 3 months old because that's when I put the parents into the tank). I now have a plexiglass divider in the tank so that one of the moms with about 30 fry will get a chance to look after them. These little guys are about 2 weeks post wriggler stage and are living on whatever they can find. Her 'ferociousness' kept all the other fish out of her end of the tank. That's two feet out of a four footer. Impressive little creature. There are also 4 juveniles in another tank that grew up on whatever they could find in the bottom detritus, on the algae growing on the glass and the Java moss. In direct contrast, I raised several batches of borellii on microworms. When the worm supply dwindled, they starved. They did not spend time searching for protozoans despite the fact that they were in an established planted tank! They grew up stupid as far as I'm concerned and convinced me to not bother with all this live food culturing, especially since I am not a commercial breeder. Even after they grew big enough to eat larger food they just did not grow. I finally traded them. Meanwhile their brothers and sisters in another tank, born in October 1998 are now mostly 1 to 11/4 inch TL and they grew up hunting for dinner. I don't think they are sexually mature yet, but I sure can tell the boys from the girls, and almost all are very robust and outgoing - coming up to the top to take food from my fingers. So I tend to agree with Charles Ray, that these fish do much better when they are left to use their instincts to find sustenance. His fish were fortunate to be given the opportunity to eat hale and hearty in that pool all summer long! Like I said "FWIW", and it's all anecdotal, of course. G. Kadar ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@majordomo.pobox.com. For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help, email apisto-request@majordomo.pobox.com. Search http://altavista.digital.com for "Apistogramma Mailing List Archives"!