Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Apistogramma Cacatuoides (vids)
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Just moved the house - uff
I was concerned that she may eat them all when disturbed
Fortunately everything went well tho
I put the female and fry into separate small bags, than i put the bags in small bucket that they could see each other. The fry immediately gathered at the side where female was. This minimized stress and when they went back to the tank everything was fine.
Will make proper post about breeding them when I'm fully settled
More photos will come if this is successful
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I used regular 54l tank, no gravel, no plants, cascade filter set on minimum flow and sponge guard on inlet.
Male and female was conditioned for couple of weeks on white worms, beef heart, live daphnia and cyclops, live black mosquito larvae, guppy fry.
I used RO water mixed with tap to obtain around 1dH, pH lowered to 6 after few days of filtering through peat, temperature 28 Celsius.
As the substrate for eggs few small terracotta pots and coconut shell went in
They spawned after 2 days and i removed the male. According to different sources harem spawning is possible with 1 male and multiple females. This will require much larger tank though.
The larvae started to swim after 6 days and i put in lump of java moss to let the fry catch some infusoria in it. They are big enough to eat brine shrimp nauplii and micro worms from the very beginning.
They are 1 week old now and tripled in size.
Male
Female
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ANYONE KNOW A WORD STRONGER THAN JEALOUS ????
Kev.
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I started to give them some Tetra Prima food. They eat it without any fuss.
Will move the fry to bigger tank soon.
In the meantime i got my hands on variation called "DOUBLE RED" - prettier, less often available and more expensive. It's a female and u can compare her with the one with babies. Last two photos.
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your water conditions are bang on when they are breeding I had fry from apistos before but they were in a community tank so only 2 survived.
Beautiful double red you have
Makes me wanna have a go at breeding them
i have some egyptian cichlid fry at the minute 
parents
mum is the top one
dad need to get better pics of him he is fast
another of my holding females
older fry
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@ceech you need a fish house soon in norway!
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what i need is a new house and a fish room of my very own
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@andrewo I wish i have magic touch though
Her's some new pics. It's 6 weeks now and growth rate is really fast and they become a lot more active. Before they were staying in shadow of lump of java moss and close to coconut shell. Now it's all over the tank. They are around 1cm long. As for diet it's still brine shrimp also live cyclops, white worms and tetra prima as red coloring food. Started to give them very finely chopped beef heart and they are mad about it.
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BUT......have you started your own thread on them and the fry? if not, why not? (YOU HAVE TO ANSWER BTW....as I want to see some proper african cichlids mentioned a bit more on forums
....I'll get killed by the malawi crew for that)And Bart.....looking really good I must say.
And.....great that you gave details of the conditions for all to use as a reference.
ian
Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.
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i want some wild one to breed with myself , but can be hard to get here in norway.
his lady
bright yellow ready to mate
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They are 3cm, diet is beef heart, white worms and daphnia/cyclops
Starting to show colors
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there's some great setups u have yourself mate
all u missing now is some rainbowfish
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This is the last update on them. The largest ones approaching 5cm.
I don't have anything to add really. If u look at the start date of the post it took only around 3 months to get to this stage. They grow really fast provided the diet is not only dry food
. Unfortunately the photos don't do them justice.
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I have 2 new setups now with dwarf apisto.
Agassi apisto and Macmaster's Apisto i am hoping to see some fry
PH is good now and eating well and cleaning caves so all signs are good
I have to get around to posting pictures of all my new tank setups and fish.
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