My Apistogramma cacatuoides

**illumnae** · 8th Jun 2007, 22:21

Sorry for the bad photography and dirty fishtank glass =)

but after much egging from nicholas here i am with some pictures of my 3 week long purchase =)

**illumnae** · 8th Jun 2007, 22:45

btw, the white specks you see on the leaves of my anubias are decap brine shrimp eggs. the apistos and pencilfish love em them.

**genes** · 8th Jun 2007, 23:13

Looking good. They still look young though. Finnage will still develop over time.

**PLee** · 8th Jun 2007, 23:16

good update. nice !!!

**benny** · 9th Jun 2007, 14:40

A good pair to get in to dwarf cichlid keeping. I'm sure it will be very rewarding when they do breed for you.

Cheers,

**illumnae** · 9th Jun 2007, 21:55

still a long way from breeding i think, they haven't even paired up yet

**joopsg** · 10th Jun 2007, 09:26

Maybe you should get a portable DVD player and ask our fellow forumer to film their pair during spawning and show it to them??

**illumnae** · 10th Jun 2007, 16:47

fish pornography?

**genes** · 10th Jun 2007, 22:51

Fish Pornography videos don't have. Porn pictures have

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=22364

**leeruisheng** · 11th Jun 2007, 20:08

Looking good.

By the way the pot with the hole in photo 4 looks very familiar. From Cacatuoides?

**illumnae** · 11th Jun 2007, 20:50

yup, fish and pot are both from him =) the pot is now my albino bristlenose's resting ground...they took it away from my apistos, so now i put in a teacup as a "secondary cave" for them

**illumnae** · 13th Jun 2007, 14:26

my room is somewhat under renovation so i'm unable to observe them more closely, but it seems that the female has become progressively more yellow though not bright highlighter yellow..the black on her ventral fins and 1 dorsal ray (you can faintly make it out in the pictures above) have become very dark and obvious. this morning, i noticed her hiding inside the pot (seen in picture 4) and only coming out for short periods of time to eat and chase the male/pencilfish before going back in.

spawning perhaps, or maybe just false alarm? haha...the only thing is that she's not highlighter yellow like most pictures i see but just noticeably more yellow than the olive/light brown that can be seen from the pictures

**leeruisheng** · 13th Jun 2007, 14:44

Since you've a juvenile pair, maybe her colouration has yet to fully develop. Good luck. Who knows you might see some fries soon.

**genes** · 13th Jun 2007, 20:40

Sounds like she has spawned for you.

**illumnae** · 13th Jun 2007, 20:46

she's still in the cave now and the male is being kept quite far away...usually he likes to hang out near the wood or the cave....now he's chilling at the far end of the tank...haha looks like my apistos need loud noises to "get into the mood"

or maybe it's because i changed water 2 times in 2 days....first time it's cuz cause i was free to change, then 2nd time cuz cause i took out water to seed my new tank so had to top up haha...

**joopsg** · 13th Jun 2007, 21:59

most probably the pair had spawned...

**illumnae** · 14th Jun 2007, 09:57

update for today. i switched off the lights last night (left them on 24 hours previously due to the renovation in my room and this morning it seems that the female has abandoned the cave that she was hiding in. does this mean she's eaten the eggs?

i do notice that she's still chasing away the male and pencilfish from the area, but she's no longer possessively sitting inside the cave all the time anymore. perhaps the change in lighting shocked her into eating the eggs

but now that she's actually out, i do notice that she's alot skinnier than she was 2 days ago despite still coming out to eat before dashing back in...so i guess that's confirmation that she did lay eggs sometime or another...question now is just whether the eggs are still in existence or a tasty supper last night