# How Many Apistogramma's?



## Tommy (17 Nov 2018)

Hi everyone, I have added my boesemani rainbow fish to the tank along with a pair of apistogramma fire reds and two peacock gudgeon's. I would like to keep more apisto's they are one of my favourite fish. My LFS said I could possibly keep three pairs in my tank but I am not interested in breeding them as there's always the possibility of cross breeding and lots of aggression. 

So my question is, if I were to keep only male apisto's how many could I add to my tank? And which species mix together the best? I am interested in the Hongsloi, Nijesseni, Viejeta, Borellii, Panduro to name just a few.

Tank is well planted with lots of hiding places and is 240ltrs 4ft long. I intened to take the female fire red out if I can add several males. Thanks ​


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## Tommy (19 Nov 2018)

Just been to my LFS and was told I can keep male apistos from different species in my tank no problem, they said I could put around 10 in. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Thanks


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## goldscapes (19 Nov 2018)

Have you tried Apistogramma.com?


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## Tommy (19 Nov 2018)

davexcape said:


> Have you tried Apistogramma.com?



I am just looking on there now to see if I can find any threads, not much comes up in a search so looks like I will have to sign up. Thanks for the reply


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## alto (19 Nov 2018)

Mike Wise has commented on this in some threads -  in response to queries where the OP wants to keep more than a single species and has no interest in breeding  ... unfortunately I can’t point to any specific topic 

Your tank is 120cm long which is good, but what is the width? Floorprint is more important than height as all the apisto will be in the substrate zone 
Note you don’t want to include many other bottom dwellers 

I’d want to add all the apisto in a single group, beginning with juveniles, you’ll likely still need to pay some attention to species


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## Tommy (19 Nov 2018)

alto said:


> Mike Wise has commented on this in some threads -  in response to queries where the OP wants to keep more than a single species and has no interest in breeding  ... unfortunately I can’t point to any specific topic
> 
> Your tank is 120cm long which is good, but what is the width? Floorprint is more important than height as all the apisto will be in the substrate zone
> Note you don’t want to include many other bottom dwellers
> ...



Thanks alto, width is 40cm/16inch, I wasn't going to bother with bottom dwellers but thought I would get some ottos. So buy them all at the same time and put them in together? Is that so one doesn't have a territory before the others and then they just sort territories out for themselves?


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## alto (19 Nov 2018)

Even without females present I suspect they will still claim some territory - and you may get the odd male who will decide that if only he had the whole tank, some girl just might _finally_ show up, so you’ll still need to monitor for this type of behaviour (I’d have something like Tropica bankwood in an upper region of the tank) 

I suspect that juvenile cichlids that grow up together will generally have better tolerance than mature unrelated cichlids added to a tank - especially if there is a pre-existing group ... while you may see an “empty” territory, your fish may disagree 

There are lots of posts on Apistogramma.com re relative aggression of species, also “better” species to combine in a community tank

For Search term use the species name in “title only” to get results you can read through 
eg, A bitaeniata Shishita, begin with
Shishita 
then try bitaeniata if you don’t get sufficient hits/information 

Also a lot of the older threads have very good information


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## Tommy (19 Nov 2018)

alto said:


> Even without females present I suspect they will still claim some territory - and you may get the odd male who will decide that if only he had the whole tank, some girl just might _finally_ show up, so you’ll still need to monitor for this type of behaviour (I’d have something like Tropica bankwood in an upper region of the tank)
> 
> I suspect that juvenile cichlids that grow up together will generally have better tolerance than mature unrelated cichlids added to a tank - especially if there is a pre-existing group ... while you may see an “empty” territory, your fish may disagree
> 
> ...



Thanks again alto, looking over the site now, and have posted a thread so will see what I can find out. Will have a look at the tropica bankwood.


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