Is my Apistogramma viejita in breeding mood?

[ongtw]

hi guys,

when i came back from work today, i noticed that my female viejita is very yellow. almost orange in colour. in addition to that, the markings on her body and cheek has also grown more intense.

the male who's normally chasing the female around (he's just too horny) is now being chased away by the female. i can't really see the female as she's hiding behind a big rock near a heavily planted area.

[raymond]

most likely she has spawn already. good luck

[ongtw]

oh wow,

lets hope so. what do i do now? first timer. any advice?

[raymond]

how big is your tank, are you interested to keep the fries, do you have enough space to sperate the male and female?? Most people will seperate the male from the female if interested to keep the fries with higher survival rate. If not you can choose to leave the male inside, and hope that the fries is able to survive like how they use to survive in the wild with all the adult fishes around.

Just my 2 cents worth, if i am wrong, please correct me.

[mobile2007]

Congrats, brother.

Time to brew some bbs, well, maybe decapsulated bbs eggs.

[ongtw]

can i just seperate the male and put him into the breeding box but share the same tank? dang.. can't confirm whether she has really spawned. how long do i start to see fries swimming if she spawned? and when do i start feeding? its a heavily planted tank so where should i put the food so that little ones can see?

[ongtw]

hm...

i went to sit and took a look. sometimes it seems that the female is chasing the male away and sometimes it appears the the female is dancing and courting the male. the male now doesn't seem to pay any attention to the female...

can anyone shed some light?

[ongtw]

hi guys,

sorry to sound pushy, just some info. i've got 2 killer snails and a handful of shrimps in the tank as well. will these harm the fries/eggs if my female happened to spawn?

[mobile2007]

- 4 days for eggs to wriggler, then wriggler to free-swimming another 4 days. By next tuesday you should see fries free swimming.

- Putting the male into breeder box is ok

- For first 2 days, fries will be feeding on their yolk sac or micro-organism in water. After that, female will bring them around. Hatch some bbs or get some decapsulated bbs eggs, feed them as usual.

- Aggressive Female will fenced off any fish/shrimps that get near, but sometimes too many will stress the female, end up eating up the fries.

[ongtw]

hi guys,

this is weird. yesterday i saw her chasing the male away but this morning, then i took a look again, there were 2 occasion where the female actually flare up (still very yello-orange in colour) and start the horny dance in fron of the male. its the same dance i see the male tried the previous weeks.

the weird thing is, now the male totally ignore the female! playing hard to get eh? lol!

[mobile2007]

Ong,

Just be patient. Once you see that the female consistently guarding or going back to the same spot, you know that she has spawned.