Companion for Apistogramma

[zeek_fon]

Hi all,

May I check which type of fish is suitable for Apistogramma besides OTO??

Thanks

Regards

[illumnae]

pencilfishes and hatchetfishes make pretty good ditherfish. surprisingly, my personal experience with sparkling gouramis has been good as well

[zeek_fon]

Hi bro illumnae,

Do you normally have ditherfish with Apistogramma?? I always thought that by having ditherfish is quite troublesome should the Apisto spawn. Need to net them can be quite difficult. How many do you normally place in a 2ft low tech tank??

Thanks.

[benetay]

Apisto can live without other fishes in the tank happily. If you're going to spawn them, my suggestion is not to introduce any fishes other then the pair in the tank. So you don't have to worry about netting them up later.

2ft is a great spawning tank for a pair of apisto.

Cheers!

[zeek_fon]

Thanks Benetay. Just curious, will Yamato/other shrimps eat up Apisto eggs??

[jacian]

They will attempt to eat the eggs. Whether they succeed or not is a different story.

[illumnae]

i always have dithers in my apisto tanks. However, as bentay has mentioned, a number of experienced apisto keepers have advocated the opposite and have bad experiences with certain dithers. For example, my boraras brigittae have never eaten a single apisto fry, but genes has shared in another thread that he has caught his boraras munching on fry. Perhaps I'm lucky?

For me, i find that dithers help beautify the tank and they also help the apistos feel more at ease when they see a school of small fish swimming around (i believe this is instinctive). I've never had to remove well chosen dithers from my apisto tanks even when they spawned (the only exception was a badly chosen dither - tetras - which were munching on fry). Ultimately, there's no general rule of thumb when it comes to apistos as every fish differs in character. It's a matter of how much risk you're willing to take. If you want to play it 100% safe, don't put in any dithers

just sharing my experience, which i do believe is quite different from others

[WaterH2O]

Definitely shrimps are scavengers by nature. they go snooping around for food. Not a good idea.

[illumnae]

They will attempt to eat the eggs. Whether they succeed or not is a different story.

very true I believe shrimp will never succeed against apistos. I used to have an aggressive Ap. bitaeniata that liked to tear up shrimp for fun. He would never eat them, just tear them into half and leave the corpses there to rot. He's even torn up giant yamatos larger than himself without sustaining a single battle mark.

[WaterH2O]

I have no dithers not because I am worried that they will eat up the apisto eggs but I have a 1 feet too small to put in anything else.

[zeek_fon]

Thanks to all for teaching me so many things... Cheers

[exotic_idiot]

Yamato/other shrimps eat up Apisto eggs??

Please do not put them inside as apistogramma will eat them up..
My apistogramma intends to attack yamato and i end up clearing alot of "hei bee"
Hahaaa

[genes]

I have no problems with the XL size yamatos or malayans in my apisto tanks.

[exotic_idiot]

I think mine all S or M size... Got them cheap at Y618... Alot of mine yamato dies