Ed's Rio 180

[aaronnorth]

brilliant, are the fry easy to raise?

 

[Ed Seeley]

brilliant, are the fry easy to raise?

Not too bad. The female will hopefully do most of the hard work, I'll just give them regular feeds of brine shrimp which I'm hatching lots of each day to feed the adults and the baby killifish I'm raising at the moment too. The only real issue might be the other agassizii in the tank with her.

 

[Thomas McMillan]

Great news! I hope they survive okay, let us know 😀

 

[TDI-line]

Nice pics Ed. 😀

 

[Ed Seeley]

Cheers guys. 😀

Seems I was a bit over-confident about how easy they were going to be though as the female's already abandoned the cave and is being beaten up by the male (there are lots of hiding places though so I haven't removed her). I have removed the cave with about a dozen eggs (so I think my photography may have disturbed them and stopped them laying more) and have it in a small tub with an airline to move the water. Hopefully the eggs will be viable and I'll have wrigglers in 2 or 3 days and then fry in 6-8. I'll take some photos of the eggs tomorrow if they prove viable.

 

[altaaffe]

That's a shame Ed, I had a couple of problems with my initial attempts with Apistos. Most of it can come down to the male wanting to breed again, when I did eventually get wrigglers, he helped by spreading them all round the tank !!

Good luck with the eggs though and I'm sure after a few goes at it they'll soon catch on what is supposed to happen.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Cheers guys. 😀

Seems I was a bit over-confident about how easy they were going to be though as the female's already abandoned the cave and is being beaten up by the male (there are lots of hiding places though so I haven't removed her). I have removed the cave with about a dozen eggs (so I think my photography may have disturbed them and stopped them laying more) and have it in a small tub with an airline to move the water. Hopefully the eggs will be viable and I'll have wrigglers in 2 or 3 days and then fry in 6-8. I'll take some photos of the eggs tomorrow if they prove viable.

Isn't that what's supposed to happen?I thought it was the male that did brood care?

 

[Ed Seeley]

Isn't that what's supposed to happen?I thought it was the male that did brood care?

In Apistogramma the female takes the lead completely in brood care. In agassizii they are harem forming species and once the male has fertilised the eggs he goes baqck to defending his territory against other males and females that aren't ready to breed! The female uses a cave that the male can't get into so he, or any other fish, can't eat the eggs. Only a few species of Apistogramma are pair forming and the male then helps with the fry once they come out of the cave. Only on very rare occasions have male Apistogramma taken over the brood care and only in a couple of species I am aware of.

AFAIK there are no cichlids where the male does the brood care alone (the closest I've seen is when I bred Benitochromis finleyi 'Mungo' which is a pair forming mouthbrooder and the male and female take it in turns to incubate the eggs, swapping them a couple of times a day), that's seen usually in gouramis, some catfish and some marine fish.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Ok,sorry,my bad.

 

[Ray]

So nice to see this thread updated, a year ago when you were set up this was very inspirational to me. Also I've been baffled for months how a fragment of flower pot can be a "cave" - your photo of the female inside finally explains that.

The female uses a cave that the male can't get into so he, or any other fish, can't eat the eggs.

Dumb question time: how do they get fertislised if he can't get in? Does the male just spray in the general vicinity? And how do you position the cave to be big enough for her but not for him?
Happy New Year.

 

[Ed Seeley]

Thanks very much Ray, that comment means a lot. I'm happy with it certainly and now it's just over a year old there's only a few tweaks I'm making as I go along.

The females in Apistogramma are smaller and thinner than the males so they can get into small spaces he can't. He sits as close to the cave mouth as possible and squirts the sperm in and fans it into the cave with his tail. Tail waving and beating is a key part of the courtship rituals, probably to prove he has enough vigour and power to get the sperm to where it needs to be!

Interestingly another key with Apistogrammas is to make sure that the roof of the cave isn't too high or the sperm doesn't get up to where the eggs have been laid. I have a half coconut cave that the females go into but they will not spawn in it I think because the roof is too high!

 

[Ray]

The females in Apistogramma are smaller and thinner than the males so they can get into small spaces he can't.

So in the wild, where there are no broken flower pots, do they just find any crevice between rocks and wood - vertical or horizonal? If there is no suitable cave do they refse to breed or settle for somewhere unsuitable?

 

[Ed Seeley]

The females in Apistogramma are smaller and thinner than the males so they can get into small spaces he can't.

So in the wild, where there are no broken flower pots, do they just find any crevice between rocks and wood - vertical or horizonal? If there is no suitable cave do they refse to breed or settle for somewhere unsuitable?

They tend to breed in the leaf litter where there are tiny little gaps between huge tropical leaves. The leaf litter can also be very thick and all the little crevices in there are perfect for them. They aren't always as fussy (and a mate of mine has a picture of a female spawning on the silicone sealant of a bare rearing tank!) but some females are really that fussy. Mine have spawned on the underneath of some of the wood to the left hand side of this tank but the eggs didn't survive.

 

[Ed Seeley]

Well the eggs were all infertile and went white and some in fact burst so it's back to the drawing board again!!! I'm putting the cave back into the tank and also going to add some more caves in places I think to give more cover and choice for the females.

 

[Ed Seeley]

Time for an update.

The Apistogramma have been regularly laying eggs but I've still had no free-swimming fry. This may be a fertility issue with the male or down to something not quite right in the tank so I'll just have wait and see what happens really. If they don't get it right I may try and move a female into a tank on her own and then add the male, let them spawn and then remove the male so the female has the tank to herself. If that doesn't work then nothing will!!!

The Aphyosemion bivittatum are spawning regularly and babies appear at regular intervals. I know have about 10 fish of various ages. I have also found two lampeye fry when doing the rescape which are now in a fry tub upstairs as they were so small.

So onto the rescape...
First a before picture. I rushed this as I took the plants out last night so it's a rubbish pic I'm afraid.


The Crinum calamistratum have grown huge and had to come out. There are 5 left and one has split into three crowns too. When I removed them the leaves were about 4ft long and they were shading the glosso and HC too much and also making it impossible for me to get rid of the duckweed that was shading the plants too much. The root systems were very impressive and needless to say all that disturbance meant the water went very cloudy! They will be planted in my 180l tank upstairs with the wild angels as that tank is a little deeper and doesn't have duckweed!!!

After it was rather empty and I was debating what to fill the space with. The open space really appeals to me after months of it being rather congested and the wood is now prominent again with the moss so I needed something lower growing or open. I was thinking swords, narrow java fern or more anubias but then Dan (TDI-line) resolved the dilemna today by presenting us all with very generous portions of Blyxa on our visit to MA@East Bridgford (see what you missed out on you guys who didn't come!!! ). It is the perfect plant for that mid-ground spot so it's rapidly gone in today. Dan also gave me some Ludwigis glandulosa that will go on the right side I think but I think a female apisto has spawned in the cave there again so I can't do that yet!

Here is another very dodgy photo of the cloudy tank after squeezing in all the Blyxa (very generous portion thanks Dan). I've got the Ludwigia to plant and the glosso to replant as it had become all straggly with the lask of light but that will wait until the Apisto has either eaten her fry or got them free-swimming.

 

[Thomas McMillan]

I really like the feel that mosses, grasses and small-leaved stems create in this scape.

The Apisto that you can see in the first photo looks awesome too. 😉 It's great that they're spawning, I hope you get lucky with the eggs which I'm sure you will at some point.

 

[Mark Evans]

you've been busy Ed 😀

i love the out of control look on the glosso, it suits the feel of the tank. I'm actually letting the glosso grow freely in my 60cm in certain areas to give a more natural feel.

yeah and thanks to Dan for the blyxa!

 

[Ed Seeley]

Well it's been a while and this scape has come to the end of it's life. It could have been kept going longer but my workload at the moment has meant that this tank has had no maintenance for ages and even the CO2 has run out! The plants are a mess and I've got a fair bit of algae. I could get it back on track but it'd take lots of work and I don't have the time to keep this going at the moment.

I also fancy a complete change and when I was in Uganda I collected a load of apple snail shells from Lake Victoria so I'm setting up a Tanganyikan biotope-esque tank (I do have three authentic Neothauma shells as well as these Lake Victoria ones) so all the plants worth saving and fish are going into the tank upstairs and the entire tank is being emptied.

The new scape will probably have no plants at all (unless I relent and stick some Vallis in one corner) and will have a large pile of rocks at one end for a group of Neolamprologus helianthus and an open sandy area with lots of shells for a shell-dweller (probably either Lamprologus occelatus, L.meleagris or N.multifasciatus though I'd love to get some N.boulengeri if I could find them). Finally in the open-water above the shellies I'll have a group of Cyprichromis leptosoma which are open water mouthbreeding shoaling cichlids. I may also try either another rock-dweller or a small group of Tropheus duboisi but these will be added later on if I feel I have room.

Once I start the re-scape I will start a new journal if anyone's interested in a non-planted scape!

 

[George Farmer]

Once I start the re-scape I will start a new journal if anyone's interested in a non-planted scape!

Count me in mate.

Biotopes are my thing right now, and having just done one for Neolamprologus multifasciatus, I look forward to seeing your efforts, Ed. 😀

 

[rawr]

Aw, I've always loved this tank!

Still, it will be good to see the next journal for sure - the choice of aquascaping and fish etc are interesting.