# Incorporating breeding caves for Apistos in to hardscape



## Wisey (4 Jan 2015)

Hi All,

Does anyone have any good tips or examples for incorporating breeding caves for Apistos in to their hardscape please? Pictures would be great too!

I'm now seriously considering Apistos in my new set-up as my tap water is soft and would like to add a cave or two. With just a single breeding pair in a 60x45x45, is a single cave sufficient? 

I know a lot of people use half a coconut or a plant pot, but I want something more natural. My scape will be built up with dragon stone, can I just create some caves out of the stone, will that be sufficient, or do I need a smaller entrance to the cave so they feel more protected? 

I guess I could always put in the half coconut and then build my hardscape around it to disguise it, but I assume that it does not get any flow through it, so it is going to need to be cleaned out on a fairly frequent basis, so I need something I can lift out that is not buried under rocks and plants, right?

Any advice and thoughts would be very welcome!

Thanks,

Wisey.


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## Michael W (4 Jan 2015)

Hi Wisey,

Coconut caves are very ideal for caves, you can use java moss or any other moss for that matter to cover the appearance of the coconut to give it more of a natural look should you wish. It will also serve as a spot for fry to feed. 

Stone caves can be used but if you intend to have other fish then you have to make sure the cave only has one entrance to avoid eggs/fry to get eaten.

As with any types of caves, the more the better for Apistos as they are allowed to choose. One thing to note is that it is generally preferred that the cave entrance should only be large enough so that the female can fit through, this is because the male can fertilize eggs from outside the cave believe it or not. The added advantage to this is that it is unlikely for other fish to eat the eggs (note some males will also eat eggs), while it also makes the female feel safe so she won't abort egg laying and eating her own eggs due to insecurity.

Leaf litter is also appreciated as it can provide food for fry, it also serves as a potential nesting spot too! One of my pair of Apistos back when I had them only spawned under the curled up almond leaves.

It is also to yours and the fishes' advantage to have sand as you can observe their eating behaviour in the sand and it also promotes the fry to exhibit this behaviour which is quite important as they will find food in it too.


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## nayr88 (4 Jan 2015)

I've kept apisto's in planted tanks with out making them a home. They just seem to of made one themselves, just whack in a bit of rock some twigs and wood,... Plenty of moss and leaf litter. They'll sort it them selfs.


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## dw1305 (4 Jan 2015)

Hi all





Wisey said:


> Does anyone have any good tips or examples for incorporating breeding caves for Apistos in to their hardscape please?.......I know a lot of people use half a coconut or a plant pot, but I want something more natural. My scape will be built up with dragon stone, can I just create some caves out of the stone, will that be sufficient, or do I need a smaller entrance to the cave so they feel more protected?
> 
> I guess I could always put in the half coconut and then build my hardscape around it to disguise it, but I assume that it does not get any flow through it, so it is going to need to be cleaned out on a fairly frequent basis, so I need something I can lift out that is not buried under rocks and plants, right?.


 I think dragonstone is a limestone so will raise pH and hardness in your soft water. If you keep _Apistogramma cacatuoides_ it won't matter, for most of the other species it won't effect the adults but may stop you getting any fry. 

I mainly use 1/2 coconuts, and just super-glue some moss and fern to the top of them. You do need a small entrance to the spawning cave, the male doesn't physically enter it, and the female will often stop the entrance up with sand. Have a look at this thread <"Hidden caves">

I don't tend to remove the caves from the tanks, I think the female is pretty good at cleaning them before use.

cheers Darrel


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## Wisey (4 Jan 2015)

Thanks for the link, hidden caves is right! Can't even see them! I'll investigate the idea of putting a couple of half coconuts in there, put dragon stone around them and then maybe disguise them with some Anbuias which I was intending to use on my dragon stone and manzanita anyway.

As far as I have heard, the dragon stone is inert, just needs a lot of cleaning. I spent hours cleaning it already, but it needs another soak and another session with the bottle brush before I will be happy to put it in the tank. I found these threads\articles:

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/is-dragon-stone-inert.16211/
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=5653

I was already intending a sand substrate so that fits well, I had not intended leaf litter before but will make sure I include that.


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## Michael W (4 Jan 2015)

I'm sure many have come across this thread already, but I have to post it on here as I believe 'Tom's Poco-Pozo'  to be an Apisto sanctuary, the wood he used in his scape should provide more than enough nooks and crannies for Apisto spawning sites and the plants around it would make a great nursery for the fry. Tom's tank sets a great example of working with the hardscape to suit particular needs of fish. If you ever consider a biotope type setup look no further. http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/toms-poco-pozo.33301/


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## Wisey (4 Jan 2015)

Tom's tank is indeed spectacular and I have been watching that thread! I'm not really planning a biotope, but would like to give the fish the best environment possible. It is my first planted tank and my first aquarium in 20 years, so I have plenty of challenges already, especially going high tech.


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## Michael W (4 Jan 2015)

You should be fine even without a biotope, Apistos are hardy fish.


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## Wisey (6 Jan 2015)

I have just received a lovely pair of coconuts! Well, coconut halves, so I guess that's just one coconut really 

Do I need to do anything to prep these for the tank?


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## dw1305 (6 Jan 2015)

Hi all,





Wisey said:


> I have just received a lovely pair of coconuts! Well, coconut halves, so I guess that's just one coconut really  Do I need to do anything to prep these for the tank?


 I scrub off any remaining fibres, then I cut a small V notch in the rim with a fine bladed hack-saw (the coconuts are really hard). Once I've cut the V notch, I round it off with a file to give a semi-circular notch.

After that I sort out some moss and Java Fern, then a quick dab with some "cyanoacrylate gel super glue", while the shell is still dry, stick the moss and fern on and straight into a bowl of water. Super-glue is water cured, so it goes off almost instantly, and after about a minute I pop them in the tank.

If you use liquid cyanoacrylate super-glue you get white streaks where the glue has run, but it works just as well. You can stick moss and ferns to pots etc as well.



 






cheers Darrel


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## Wisey (6 Jan 2015)

Thanks Darrel, I read somewhere about boiling them to remove some tannins as well, but I guess that's not strictly necessary. I was planning on clear water rather than a black water biotope, but if I add some leaf litter that's going to leach some tannins anyway.

Thanks for the tips on the glue, I'll probably add some moss, but intend to bury the shells in rock so only the entrance area will be on show and I hope to add some of the smaller Anubias as well to try and hide it a bit more.

The coconuts I got are already prepared with a single entrance, I got the half shell version on the bottom right of the pic below.


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## ajm83 (6 Jan 2015)

dw1305 said:


> cheers Darrel



Hi Darrel,

Do you have any pics of the end result? Just looking for suggestions to how to make the attached plants look natural.
Thanks.


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## dw1305 (6 Jan 2015)

Hi all,





Wisey said:


> The coconuts I got are already prepared with a single entrance, I got the half shell version on the bottom right of the pic below.


 That should be fine, I'd go for only about 1/2 the notch showing. You don't need to boil them. 





ajm83 said:


> Do you have any pics of the end result? Just looking for suggestions to how to make the attached plants look natural.


 I should have somewhere. I'll try and find them. They aren't on photobucket, so I'll have to have a look through some old SD cards.

If you specifically want a good moss covering I'd try DSM.

This is a WWW picture, but this is how they look. _Microsorum pteropus_ "Windelov", looks a bit artificial to me, cv. "Narrow" would look more natural.




cheers Darrel


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## Wisey (6 Jan 2015)

That was my thought, set them down in to the sand and then allow the Apistos to adjust the opening size, if they want it bigger they can shift some sand out of the opening.

I'm not planning on dry starting the aquarium, but maybe I can dry start the moss on the coconuts in another container, then once they are established, I can put them in to the main aquarium, build my hardscape around them, plant the rest and flood.


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## PARAGUAY (6 Jan 2015)

how about aquatic using silicon to glue smooth inert gravel around the caves,perhaps leave a small area for moss


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## dw1305 (6 Jan 2015)

Hi all,





Wisey said:


> That was my thought, set them down in to the sand and then allow the Apistos to adjust the opening size, if they want it bigger they can shift some sand out of the opening.


 That is the one, the female often stops the entrance up all together when she is inside. Even though they don't do a lot of sand sifting normally they are Geophagine cichlids, and can move a lot of sand if they want to. 





Wisey said:


> I'm not planning on dry starting the aquarium, but maybe I can dry start the moss on the coconuts in another container, then once they are established, I can put them in to the main aquarium, build my hardscape around them, plant the rest and flood.


 Dry start would give you a more even moss covering, but they are fine straight in the tank. The caves the females use always end up in really gloomy places, so often the moss will die anyway.





PARAGUAY said:


> how about aquatic using silicon to glue smooth inert gravel around the caves,perhaps leave a small area for moss


 You can use gravel, or glue twigs on etc. I started using PVC piping with gravel of bark siliconed on, but once I found coconuts I stopped using the piping.

You can see some pipe (where the coating has come off) in the bottom right of this photo.




cheers Darrel


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## Jaxpot (19 Apr 2015)

Hi there Wisey - I'm in the process of preparing a new aquascape (no tank or anything yet - just the initial "what's the plan?" stage at the moment). I'm wanting a cave-like structure too, and have in the past built it using slates and branches - but they've always turned out a little too rickety and invariably when cleaning I'll knock a branch or a rock, and other things collapse as a result - I always seem to do this no matter how careful I am, so I want to plan for occasional clumsiness and thought about half a coconut under the rocks - the coconut being to stop the substrate falling into it.

So I've been searching to find out whether this is even plausible with water flow, the base of the cave, cleaning, etc., as I didn't want to create something that actually became toxic and dirty for the fish. And lo and behold I found this thread. I am intrigued to know how your coconuts are doing - is there a flow? Do you need to try and get in there somehow to clean the cave floor and move the water around? Has it all worked?

Thank you for any useful info so that I can either continue with the idea, or stop it right now!
Jackie


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## Wisey (20 Apr 2015)

Jaxpot said:


> Hi there Wisey - I'm in the process of preparing a new aquascape (no tank or anything yet - just the initial "what's the plan?" stage at the moment). I'm wanting a cave-like structure too, and have in the past built it using slates and branches - but they've always turned out a little too rickety and invariably when cleaning I'll knock a branch or a rock, and other things collapse as a result - I always seem to do this no matter how careful I am, so I want to plan for occasional clumsiness and thought about half a coconut under the rocks - the coconut being to stop the substrate falling into it.
> 
> So I've been searching to find out whether this is even plausible with water flow, the base of the cave, cleaning, etc., as I didn't want to create something that actually became toxic and dirty for the fish. And lo and behold I found this thread. I am intrigued to know how your coconuts are doing - is there a flow? Do you need to try and get in there somehow to clean the cave floor and move the water around? Has it all worked?
> 
> ...



Hi Jackie,

I'm afraid due to a number of reasons, my aquarium is still sat empty and I have not been able to start my project. I'm probably not going to set up until later in May or early June now as things should be on an even keel at home by that point. I therefore can't give you any advice from experience, but what I would say is I have thought about this quite a lot and my thoughts were that you would probably need to put the coconuts in somewhere that you were able to lift them if needs be as I doubt you would really get much flow and you might want to do some housekeeping from time to time. I'm still tempted with the Apisto idea, but with this being my first planted aquarium, I may just forget about breeding Apistos for now and concentrate on learning how to grow plants first! Sorry I can't be more help!


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## Jaxpot (21 Apr 2015)

Thanks for replying. No worries at all. I think you're right - perhaps half a half-coconut, or a curved part of terracotta pot to form a shallower cave could work to stop the substrate caving in (or, rather, me breaking it) and allow easier access. Moss and plants make a very effective cover. The photo below (sorry for poor quality, I don't have a good camera) shows my first attempt with a slate cave - but it wasn't glued at all so fell apart one day when I moved something and the substrate behind fell in on it. Not sure who was more annoyed, me or the tetra who had been calling it his home - although he always gave way to any shrimp who wanted in. But they do create some interesting activity when fishes/shrimps decide they like them. Good luck for when the project does get going!
Jackie

_... room for a little one?_


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