Re: Good catfish

[Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise@bewellnet.com>]

This may be a strange question to some, but why on Earth do you want to breed any
fish in a community setting? The only reason I can see for this being done
purposely is to see the behavioral response of the parent fish and the rest of
the community. Being in a small tank (relative to the wild), even these responses
will be atypical of what happens in the wild.

To answer your question from my biased opinion, if you want to breed and raise
apistos don't put other bottom dwelling fish in with them. If you want a
community setting where you don't care if the spawns survive, then I'd suggest
getting catfish that are slightly larger and much faster than your cichlids, say
a small pimelodid species. These should be able to protect themselves from you
apistos, but will eat every fry in the tank. The only fish I keep in my breeding
tanks are the parents and a couple of pencilfish (very small mouths and they tend
to stay in the upper half of the tank). If I have an overly aggressive male and a
very submissive female, I'll add a small cichlid as target/dither fish. This
usually keeps the male from continually harassing the female.

Mike Wise

Thomas Fischer wrote:

> Are there _any_ catfish that can be unreservedly recommended for keeping
> with apistos (assuming you want to try to spawn your apistos in a community
> setting)? Corys, peckoltias, and ancistrus, it seems, are all egg and/or fry
> eaters. Are otos OK? Any recommendations would be most appreciated.
>
> Tom Fischer
> Boston
>
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