mobile2007's first pair of Apistogramma cacatuoides

[mobile2007]

Hi all,

Got myself a pair of cacatuoides from biotope yesterday. Housed them in my 1.5ft tank and they seems to settle well inside.





Food wise, i fed them some frozen bloodworm last nite and both seems to like it. The male caca is very greedy and take on any kind of food, while the female only chewed on worms now.

Read from some sites that blood worm might cause problems, any ideas what and why?

[Quixotic]

I am not sure if it is advisable to house Pseudepiplatys annulatus in the same tank as A. cacatuoides. It has been mentioned that A. cacatuoides may eat small fishes.

P. annulatus is certainly small enough to fit in their mouth, and isn't the fastest fish around to start with.

[cricha]

Nice pair you have there.

Welcome to the world of Apistos.

[illumnae]

very nice Ap. cacatuiodes you have there...vibrant colours on the male and the female is looking nice and yellow =)

[valice]

Read from some sites that blood worm might cause problems, any ideas what and why?

Some of the findings are the results of our own demise of the fish after a period of blood-worm feedings. It seems that with prolonged feeding of bloodworms, the apistogrammas tend to be done with internal bacteria or parasites.

Also, some of the smaller apistogrammas might have problems passing out the exoskelotons of the worms. And because of that, suffer and die.

Feeding bloodworms is alright, just in moderation and not a staple food. Preferably, try to get them to feed on flakes and prepared foods. It will save you alot of trouble getting live food for them in the long run.

[trident]

mobile2007,
nice pair you got. pair looks young, take good care of them and they should have a long relationship with you.

[mobile2007]

Very new in fish keeping, still need to learn more from people over here.
( good to read through some of the threads on cacatuoides over here)

This caca pair is from biotope, if anyone is interested. They still have quite a few pairs left.

Quixotic, thanks for the advice. So far the cacatuoides are quite friendly with the P. annulatus, but i will keep a watch over them ( no more place to house those killies ). The female seems to be having fun teasing the oto though.

Valice, thanks for the info. It really clear my doubt on bloodworm. Will varied the diet for the caca. As i mentioned before, the female caca is more picky with food.

illumnae, cricha. thanks. I have also read the threads by you all. It definitely helps a newbie like me.

trident, i really hope that they will live long and spawn often.

[illumnae]

it's good to see that you're dedicated to keeping your apistos well and are reading up about them and how to keep them well =) i hope you find great joy in your fish and that this will be just a start to a long apisto keeping "career"

you have a beautiful pair of fish, keep them happy and well and i'm sure you'll be rewarded with many hours of watching them and relaxing in front of your tank...i know i've never regretted for one second venturing into apistos.

oh, and i'm still a newbie too =) lots to learn still from the pros

[marle]

glad to see another member with apistos!

btw, my apisto both of them does not like any processed food.

Tetrabits? No
Frozen bloodworm? No
Frozen brineshrimp? No


Live tubifex worm? YES!!!

Your apisto eats everything you give him? i like!

[mobile2007]

Well, illumnae, need to be cool about this apisto. Got not much resource M to burn.

marle, it's only the male caca. Too bad the female fish aren't so flexible. But i will try tetrabits, plus bbs/daphnia. Frozen bloodworm will formed part of the diet.

[oblivion]

then i must be darn lucky
my pair eats anything i dump into the tank

sera microgran ==> tick
FD tubifex ==> tick
FD bloodworm ==> tick
decap bs eggs ==> tick

maybe you should starve them abit
i feed mine once a day only, and sparingly too (considering only whatever is left for them after the tetras are done)
perhaps it helps in making them more keen on other foods

[doppelbanddwarf]

Marle you might want to reconsider feeding your Apistos on a regular diet of tubifex worms.
Apistos seem to get internal parasites and end up with sunken belly when fed regularly with tubifex worms. Quite hard to treat once they get that sunken belly.

Try mashing up the tetrabits and feed it together with some live baby brineshrimp.I got my agassizii fries to eat tetrabits that way. At the start they fed exclusively on bbs and refused to eat any prepared foods.

[illumnae]

yep limchongyu's method of getting them used to new foods works well...i did that on my discus to get them to start eating beefheart and on my apistos to get them used to new flake foods =)

also, apistos are foragers, so although you might not see them rush for the food, they might be picking at it later

[Cacatuoides]

You can try feeding them Tetra Pro Color flakes, my apistos seem to take them after a while of starving and hunger

[marle]

ok thanks guys.. will try mixing it with the bbs..

[mobile2007]

This morning i saw the female caca remained stationery near one corner of the tank, thought she is going to say "goodbye" to me. Thought i had put in too much ketapang leave or did something wrong. Haha, just came back in the evening and found that there is one lump of eggs stick on the surface of ketapang leave. Hurry remove the killies, leaving only the oto.

Feeding them decap bs eggs now. Will monitor them closely.

[Samuel2618]

"Hurry remove the killies"


Yes!! They must be removed away immediately as they will surely sneak in and snatch a few eggs as their meal.. One bro in AQ already experienced that..

If you have corys inside.. Have to remove them as well..

All the best for the egg hatchery process..

[doppelbanddwarf]

Try not to overfeed so as to keep the water pristine. Also large water changes are not recommended. I myself would not do anything that changes the parameters of the water at all, just to play safe.

[genes]

Congratulations. Thats a nice pair of Ap. cacatuoides.

I would suggest not to feed decapsulated eggs to the fries till they are bigger. Fries generally have weaker digestive system. The shells may be a problem for them to digest.

[trident]

mobile2007,
looks like congratulations are in order.
well done, there was pretty quick.
I think you may also want to remove the male.
They mightl eat up the fries.