My first pair of Apistogramma agassizii

[sfk7]

Please pardon the poor pictures. This is the best that i can take with my ricoh PnS camera.

Male



'Female'



I seriously don't think this is a female. Can anyone point it out? Got them from C328 2 days ago. Decided to take the plunge and get a pair to try. They are currently in my 2ft planted community tank. Have taken to NLS Thera A from the first day so not much of a problem for me. Are these agassizii red?

[stormhawk]

A closer shot of the tail might be your determining factor. Females have the tails rounded, where agassizii is concerned, at least for the Red. I do believe that your "female" is a sneaker male. Many of the pairs sold at C328 are not true pairs, because the supplier sends fish without properly sexing them beforehand.

In any case, when the female is in condition, after she lays eggs, her body will turn bright yellow and the middle line will disappear and show a black dot right in the middle of her body.

To be really sure that you have a female, it should have laid eggs already while still at the LFS.

[sfk7]

And so i suppose i got myself a pair.



But i think i have to give them up as I don't have space to house the male and its being chased around and bullied by the female right now.

[joopsg]

sfk7, the pair had spawned that why the female is chasing the male.
Look at the breeding dress she had put on now..
very gorgeous looking

[genes]

The female chasing the male when she has spawned is a normal behavior when your tank is small and lacks dither fishes. What you can do now is put many woods in your tank so that it will break line of sight for the pair and the woods can also serve as hiding places for the male should the female get overly aggressive.

[stormhawk]

sfk7, get a breeding trap to house the male temporarily within the same tank. When fishing him out, do it at night and do it slowly so as not to stress the female out if she is guarding eggs. Do it wrongly and you might end up with some egg/fry eating by the female.

[fatKillies]

A closer shot of the tail might be your determining factor. Females have the tails rounded, where agassizii is concerned, at least for the Red. I do believe that your "female" is a sneaker male. Many of the pairs sold at C328 are not true pairs, because the supplier sends fish without properly sexing them beforehand.

So which shop is the best to intro. newbie when making purchase for such fish?

[sfk7]

Thanks to all input. They were housed in a standard 2x1x1ft tank with 30 boraras urophthalmoides and 10+ corydoras pgymaeus, some otos and gobies. Its fairly heavily planted but the female just seems to be hunting down the male resulting it to be near the surface and always flaring. Can't stand the sight of the 'hurt' look of the male.

Have since sold them to a fellow forummer who has a tank specially for them. Will definitely try to rear apisto again when i can have dedicated tanks for them. They are definitely too territorial (for me at least) in a community tank.