A. cacatuoides spawn

[arjay]

I was going to order some Apistos from SLS's current shipment but my wife decided that she wanted to buy a house rather than renew our lease so I had to put that idea on hold. Instead I bought a trio of A. cacatuoides for my planted tank as a next best option.

The tank was setup as an aquascaping project and has no caves or pots so I thought there wasn't much chance that they'd spawn. At the end of the 1st week I had to take the smaller female out because the other female was bullying her mercilessly and 2 days later the two remaining fish spawned behind the one rock in the tank.

The eggs have hatched and the female is constantly moving the wrigglers from one position to another around the rock and keeping the male and 2 Otos well away.

Just a couple of questions. What's the chance that the fry will survive in the tank once they're free swimming (no predators other than the 2 Apistos)? And how long until I should be looking at moving them to another tank (the one they're in is only an 18" job)?

[parkap]

arjay,

Can't really help on the raising the fry side of things, but the only apisto's I've ever had spawn in my community tank are caca's. Although no babies ever survived - but that's mainly because they put their eggs in a tunnel of a really big rock right near my water inlet so the babies got washed away.

Any chance of putting a photo of the male up?

BTW - well done.

p.

[arjay]

Excuse the water colour, I ripped out some Ambulia over the weekend and the Aqua-basis + in the substrate went into suspension and due to the extra nutrients I now have green water...

I don't know how this guy matches up to what you get in the eastern states but for Adelaide this is an exceptional specimen...

[parkap]

Very nice body structure. He looks young stil. How old is he? The colours are coming along very nicely.

[arjay]

No idea how old I'm afraid, I've only had them for a week and a half and I don't think the LFS had had them long either.

These are easily the most robust cacatuoides I've seen here. The specimens we usually get just sit on the bottom of the shop's tank looking pretty dreadful but these guys would swim up and down against the front glass whenever someone would walk past. I wasn't really after any fish at the time but for an Apisto starved city these were too good to pass up...

[Th0mas]

Congratulation.

From your descriptions, I would relocate the otos.

When the wigglers become free swimmers, they can wander off from mum and end up near an oto's mouth.

Green water is good for fry, shouldn't worry. Now is probably the time to setup a BBS hatchery. Microworm is okay, but BBS is much better.

Thomas.

[arjay]

Set up a hatchery last night so I'm okay there. Will probably relocate the Otos tonight mostly because they're getting a really hard time from the female. She'd have to be one of the most aggressive fish I've come across. I had to remove 5 ember tetras because she almost killed them. She's fine with the male thankfully - she just pushes him away with a couple of sweeps of her caudal fin.

Provided they survive how long do you think it'll be before I'll need to relocate the fry for practical reasons (an 18" tank isn't going to be able to support too many fish)?

[Namn8r]

Hi arjay,

hes a nice looking fish, feed him tetra bits and you will see him colour up even better!

Get hold of some frozen baby brineshrimp as its much easier, the young are good to stay with the mum for a couple of weeks after free swimming but you will find they will start disappearing. Caca mums are great parents but it does take a toll on them. I would suggest siphoning out the babies after dark. The mum will bring them back to the cave once dark and they will all be together and easy to siphon.

[steph]

And dont take out all the other fish either. WIth no one to take out her aggression on she may turn on the male.

Congrats on the spawn

Cheers

Steph

[Robdog]

I'll second that steph. I just had male and female in small breeding tank and they had eggs where I couldn't see and she thumped him until he gave up because he couldn't get away.
Now she's only got baby bristlenose to chase around and she'll NEVER catch them (Famous last words).

Need some advice tho. This is the first spawn that I've raised leaving the mother to look after fry. The growth rate is much MUCH better but how long should I leave her in there??
At first she would scoop them up in her mouth if they got away from her but I reckon they'd struggle to fit in now. They were born on ANZAC day so they are going on 2 weeks now.