nitram79

Hi all,

This is my new 2 footer for my apistos. I'm hoping that they will breed.



I showed the fish shop the pics of my fish and he said they were different types, but they seem to like eachother alot. the male displays for the girls and they seem to love him just as much. the fish im talking about is the 2 females next to the dwarf gourami, and the big male down below to the right.




does anyone have any suggestions with anything. i think i'll be moving things around in the future if they dont like it like, but basically atm i have 2 cave like structures at either end of the tank for each female to claim, though i'm sure its not goin to be so simple, im hoping thats what will happen though, if they like them, who knows, will have to see i guess.
im still waiting for the heater. I filled half tank with tap water and the other half with water from my 3 footer. plus i pulled out one of the filters from the 3 footer and put in into the 2 footer without cleaning it. I seems like the tank is already cycled after a day or so as i tested it and no amonia or nitrites, and a low reading of nitrates. so all good there. any input would be much appreciated.
marty

TedsTank

Nice setup!! They will do fine in there. The dominant female will pick her place for spawning and the other will get the available spot farthest away as possible. I had no trouble with a trio in my 55 gal. You will need to keep an eye on things as they start to spawn....the tank may be a wee bit small for a trio. When the the female gets a good regular yellow coloring she is ready. As the fry hatch you will then need to watch for aggression....her sole purpose at that point will be to protect her fry.
Congrats on the the setup, they are fun and cacatuoides is a good starter apisto. What is your pH?? It might take them a spawn or 2 to get a hatch so don't panic if their first try is a failure. Have fun!!

Yes, at this point by the pics the one female does not appear to be a cacatuoides....the yellow one is a cockatoo female...they should look nearly identical. Possibly a female Viejita type. You ought to take her back to the pet store and wait and see how it all goes with the cockatoos. With apisto females, often times identification can be very hard....and she will be a target when the others spawn.

nitram79

thanks for the input Ted... i think they are both the same, one is a bit younger than the other one. I did get them at different times, but i think out of the same tank. The male seems to like them both so thats all that counts. my PH is around 7.3 or so. i dont really check it that often, i know they like 6 - 7 so i have added some ph neutral to the 2 footer hoping that will help a bit also

TedsTank

cockatoos are able to take a bit moe Ph so you will just have to be patient when they spawn.
Your picture of the one not yellow "female" also seems to be showing blue on the face, not a particulary good sign for being a female...maybe a young male of another species in a "hiding" coloration. I can't really tell by the pics...so if they are same proportions just wait and hopefully you have 2 female cockatoos....lol.

Hiding coloration = example...I have about 12 inka50's. one dominant male has been taken out with a female and spawning regularly. All the others in the same tank appear at first to be females!!!....but on 4 more their pectoral fins do not have a black edge....those are males in hiding for protection!!!....hopefully another will stand up and become dominant in that tank too!! All the apisto's are fun!!

nitram79

yeah they are fun, they really have personality. hopefully the water is to thier liking. i'll try to keep the ph at 7. i'm pretty sure there is 2 females. i can tell from their behaviour. i guess i'll just have to see how i go. thanks for all the tips ted , i'll kepp yás informed

nitram79

Hey all, here is an updated photo of the tank. I have 1 male and 3 females in there, prob take a 1 of the girls but will see how they go for a while so i can make sure i leave the right ones in there.

aquarist48

Good morning Nitram. Your tank looks awesome! Wonderful job.
Thanks for sharing with us!
Ken

nitram79

Good evening Ken,(ha time difference)

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. And they seem to like it aswell which it good now all I have to do is keep up the tank maintenance and hope for the best.

TedsTank

Nice...I think you have nailed it!!! Next step...just be patient, no matter what we do fish won't spawn til they are ready.

nitram79

true true, just have to wait and see.
Hey Ted, did u look at that other male I posted on fish ID

Slug

Wish i could find tanks like that. The decor looks good but i'm talking about the tank itself. Rimless is awesome, wish i could find them over here without building it or paying an arm and a leg for it.

TedsTank

yes I answered that thread for you....its a triple red version of cockatoo.

can you merge your 2 threads?? we jumping back and forth for same info.

nitram79

that was the end of that post coz u answered my question. will just stick with this one now

nitram79

Hey all,

I checked on the fish yesterday and found one of the girls on the bottom resting. on closer inspection, i saw that she had alot of fin damage, then one of the other girls came out from under the shell and started attacking the resting girl again, so i quickly got her out. then i found the other girl hiding in the other corner of the tank and could see sum damage also to the fins so i took her out as well. so ive got my dominant female. she lives in the shell now, and seems to be trying to attract the male but he doesnt seem too interested. he might be too young... well thats what i hope it is.

TedsTank

humm...she might have eggs already!!!...? Never had that much aggression with the females unless they had a reason...no torn fins ever. Your guys may be in the love zone now!! and your male certainly seems old enough by the pics...color, fins, etc.

Amanda

I'm confused....are you talking about breeding the female cockatoos to the male Ram in your tank?? Because from the photo, that's what it looks like you're talking about.

TedsTank

Amanda he now has 2 male cockatoos and 3 females also. He had 2 threads going and has gotten confusing.....lol. Is going for the cockatoos to spawn. In the first pic is a male orange flash and 3 females and a dwarf Gourami. I had him kill the second thread, was going nuts scrolling around on the same subject!!!
He is all set to go now....and thanks for questioning, I even double checked the photos.

Amanda

Ahh...because I was like...I see a Ram in the second photo in the first post, and was going to say that they won't breed. lolol

TedsTank

He is so excited about getting this going....helping is what makes the Forum so much fun!

djbrist

True to the helpers, they make it fun.

When my cokatoo's paired, I noticed the female brightened her yellow, almost losing some of the black lines. I thought she was at her peak of trying to attract, or letting him know, NOW was the time... Have you seen this TedsTank, or Nitram?

Keeping an eye on this thread, I like...
Dave

nitram79

lol how funny... i reckon she has laid the eggs also, but i dont know if he has gone inside the shell to fertalise them. i havent seen him in there once yet so? but she is basically lives in there now. only comes when i come to the tank, and she'll go in and out alot, but if im not there she'll be in the shell.
i havent noticed females lose their stripe, but iv noticed the males do it. she just gets in his face and stuff, does a little flick and heads for the shell , then comes back out and does it again. but i havent seen him follow her to the shell

TedsTank

Don't worry. I never actually saw may male go in the cave with the females for any of the spawns. When she starts keeping him away....there be eggs!!!
1. get at least a pair. 2. Female disappears for several days. 3. BABIES!!!

I never had any of my coconut caves facing the front...I arranged them for her privacy, so didn't see everything.

Can' wait to tell you "congrats!!!"

I hate to say this but, please keep in mind the the first spawning or 2 is not always successful....sometimes.

nitram79

looks like the male got hammered a bit as well, have moved him to the 3 footer now, will see how he goes

TedsTank

oooooh....I thought you had them in the 3 ft. tank!! Remember breeding females are the meanies!!! He is not alowed near them until the fry are out and not wigglers!!!!
I had a trio in a 20 gal long do fine...Borelli's.
Your trio of cockatoos need a larger tank....the long type not a high tank..most cichlids need the big footprint and would venture to say all do.
I'm sry....you have the high type tank. The apistos are collected in small shallow pool and streams, water depth is not as important as is nice footprint.
Later when you get a chance put the the pair in the long tank and any exrtra females in the smaller tank. She will chase them but usually not too far from her brood, so if he get beatup...he needs to be able to get farther from her.

nitram79

hey Ted,

I dont think it was the beat up that hammered him now cause he's sitting at the bottom of the tank breathing heavily. I seem to have some sort of apisto killing disease in my tank. iv lost 3 so far and 2 more are about to die. the orange flash and the triple red look like they are goners and one of the females that got beatin up also. iv been to the LFS and they reckon its worms. iv tried h4 super killer and that didnt do anything and now im using worm terminator and i dont think thats gona pull them through either. they basically start with heavy gill movement and after a few days they stop eating and start sitting on the bottom and then die. im so bummed about it and i dont know what to do to stop it
on a better note. i looked under the shell the female keeps on going into to see what was in there if anything... and i saw this kind of brown speckled mess. on closer inspection the brown speckle look like eyes. i gave it a gentle touch/flicked the water around and i saw what looked like a tale wriggling, but they still looked like they were attached to the shell. the guys at the lfs said they were prob still attached and eating from the egg yoke. i flipped the shell back over and the female went back in to inspect the damage. hopefully i didnt cause too much, but im pretty sure i can say that there are babies in there. hopefully i'm right and all goes well with them coz im sure im about to lose the dad and a couple of others. at least his legacy will live on (fingers crossed)

nitram79

I just put the flash down i grabbed him to put him in isolation and he just flipped upsiding down and stayed that way. i havent had this much trouble with fish since i started keeping them nearly 10 yrs ago. its so disheartening, makes me want to give up all together. Hopefully these babies will grow. if it was babies that i saw.

nitram79

howdy all,

I nearly had some very bad news due to my inexperience and lack of knowledge but fortunately the mum outsmarted me and has come through with flying colours.
"The story"
yesterday i looked under the shell and while i was doing it i saw the mum eat 3 babies. this freaked me out and i ended up causing a major cotastrophe trying to seperate the babies from mum and put them in an enclosure. i basically fought with her to try and put the babies in the enclosure. she kept on eating them and darting off and coming back and i was tying to get these tiny speckles into the enclosure with a really poor success rate. ended up burying a few in the process i managed to get 6 and then 2 later after i put the mum back in the 3 footer. so i had 8 babies all up i knew the rest were in the tank hiding in the gravel and god knows where else but i didnt want to kill anymore looking so i left it alone. this all happened around mid afternoon. the mum was going bezurk in the 3 footer for the rest of the day. then in the evening around 10pm i was looking up on how to bring them up and found a website and in this site it was on cacatuoides it said. "do not panick if u see the mum "eat" the babies" she is just protecting them by moving them"
this absolutely turned my stomach inside out and i thought i was gona vomit after realising what i had done.
the lights were off in the 3 footer and fish were alsleep but i had to get that mum out and put her back in the tank. so i turned it on and after a few mins found mum in the corner, "she didnt look like she could sleep" i grabbed her and rushed her back to the 2 footer. when she got in there she was darting all over the place looking for her babies, under the shell and in the castle and everywhere else. this nearly brought me to tears as i knew i had killed a few and lost the rest. i had 8 in the enclosure and needed to get them out of there as quick as possible. this was really hard as they are so small and were sticking themselves to the stocking and a couple went into the holes in the enclosures joints. i really struggled getting them out and in the end i only saw 1 swim off, the rest i didnt see get away but i knew they were off the stocking i just didnt see it happen. I closed up the tank and walked off, thinking to myslef what have i done?? i just screwed it all up majorly. i have a stressed out mum with her babies lost and or dead, all because i had to stick my fingers where they didnt belong...After putting my mum through all this also, she was over it. she had had enough of me and my f... ups for the day and said she was going to bed and turned the tank off and went to sleep. I went to my room with nausea, headache, head noise and the biggest feeling of guilt in my stomoch that i really couldnt sleep for hours. i just wanted to shoot myself for the nightmore i had cause my little fish.
I woke up early, with the first thought in my head about yesterday and pretty much felt like **** instantly. after abot an hour in bed feeling sorry for myself my cat got me up top feed him, and i passed by the tank not really wanting to look at it and see the destruction i had cause my little girl. i had a quick look for a distance and saw no movement and thought the mums prob had a heart attack herself. i went to the kitchen a few mins later and the mum came over from the castle, so i thought id give her some food. she was all excited and had a bit then bolted over the the castle, which was what she was doing before but she was going the the shell. i had a closer look to where she was and then i saw it... her tiny little babies were with her there are about 20 of the little buggers and they are free swimming now. they stay around the castle and she keeps and eye over them. Im so happy that she was smarter than me and an awesome mum and protector cause I really nearly F....d it all up. will put pics up when i can. for now im just going to enjoy the show.
sorry for the story, this was the short version too ha ha

nitram79

Hey all,

here is a pic of mum and her babies. she has brought them back over to this side of the tank because thats where i feed em from and there is left over food there, plus she laid her eggs under the shell, so this area was her first choice. she seems to have forgiven me for my blunder as she was quite happy for me to take the pic of her and she didnt freak out at all. after the pic i gave her/them some food for being so good
Here they are

oh and i tried to have a count and there is more like 30 in there or there
abouts

djbrist

That's so great Nitram. Happy for you, and your learning experience. I had my "mum" in for a little too long and I am convinced she began to eat the fry. I noticed them distancing themselves from her more and more, and she wasn't as concerned about rounding them up. I also saw them eating the fine food I would blow by them with a turkey baster. I think it was around the 4th week (not 100% certain), but beware the signs of the fry wanting to venture off. Seems like you are really enjoying this, thats so great!!

Dave

nitram79

Thanks Dave,

I am very concerned about her eating them in about a month or less. i watch her swallow them now when they get to far and then she spits em back out into the pack. that looks soooo cool. I'll be watching very closely over the next few weeks to see their behaviour and watch for any changes with her towards them. but for now tis happy families