Apistogramma Agassizii - extremely slow growing fry?

Currently I have successfully bred apistogramma cacatuoides four times and feel that I have good routine down with them. During this time, I had a trio of apistogramma agassizii "redneck" have fry. Firstly, I removed the non-mother as she was destined to be killed. Once the fry were out and moving with the mother, I moved the male as I have had bad experience leaving the male with them. They have been raising up since with no issues. Except they are the slowest growing fish I have ever seen. I had a group of cacatuoides spawn after they did and they grew up and were sold already, while I still have the agassizii fry growing. I have attached pictures, one where you can see the mother for size comparison to the fry (the glass was very dirty, sorry about that) and a few other just showing the size of the rest of them. They are clearly colored up and maturing, but wow are they still tiny. I'm unsure if this normal, if I need just feed them way more, or if I may need to look at the possibility of parasites although I would think this would be incredibly low since they have been isolated to this tank and the parents were treated beforehand. Thanks in advance!

 

How often and what do you feed? How often do you change water? How big is the tank?

 

yes, there's the questions.
What is the water testing at?
How often are you feeding?
and what temp are the fry at?
What size is the tank?

For raising fry, cranking up the temp a few degrees, slowly over time will speed metabolism and growth, and will make them want to eat more.

feeding 3-4x a day minimum, technically from what I know you can feed a little bit every 2 hours even so theres something in the water they can eat available, they will eat and they will poop, and sometimes both at the same time. There is best growth feeding baby brine shrimp of course.

if they have to travel too far to get food, or its too long between meals, they can burn more calories than they are eating and instead of growing, just subsisting. they should always be eating and pooping for faster growth, but not so much their stomachs pop. just keeping them with stuff to burn, that's going to growth instead of just energy. the individual fish can "thrive" or "subsist" also, some just aren't interested on eating as much as others.

Finally, if you have nitrates, it will slow things down, ideally, you are doing daily water changes of 20% or every two days. those fry are eating and pooping and lots of food in the water, and you want the nitrates low, low, low as you can get for optimum growth, and the water changes will also remove any hormones that might be released to the water from the fish that might happen, which could slow growth of some lesser individuals over the dominant ones. the "only the strong survive" rule is always at play. so best to keep the water as clean as you possibly can for best growth.

As far as normal, well, hard to say, Any fry i've had of any species, some die, some don't seem to grow at all in a month while the main pack is average, and there are some that exceed the packs growth. Fish take as long as they need to grow, you can make some tweaks to speed it up some, or try to avoid stunting situations by doing water quality checks and water changes, or just resigning yourself to a daily water change.

And they should be approaching a half inch by 2 months time. they might start slow, and put on a spurt later. Should be around an inch in 5 months time.

you've raised the cacatuoides so you should have a good grasp on how it goes, water quality, and feedings ect. maybe those spawns you were blessed with exceptional fry, and now you're dealing with the F troop that just needs a little more attention to thrive.

 

yes, there's the questions.
What is the water testing at?
How often are you feeding?
and what temp are the fry at?
What size is the tank?

For raising fry, cranking up the temp a few degrees, slowly over time will speed metabolism and growth, and will make them want to eat more.

feeding 3-4x a day minimum, technically from what I know you can feed a little bit every 2 hours even so theres something in the water they can eat available, they will eat and they will poop, and sometimes both at the same time. There is best growth feeding baby brine shrimp of course.

if they have to travel too far to get food, or its too long between meals, they can burn more calories than they are eating and instead of growing, just subsisting. they should always be eating and pooping for faster growth, but not so much their stomachs pop. just keeping them with stuff to burn, that's going to growth instead of just energy. the individual fish can "thrive" or "subsist" also, some just aren't interested on eating as much as others.

Finally, if you have nitrates, it will slow things down, ideally, you are doing daily water changes of 20% or every two days. those fry are eating and pooping and lots of food in the water, and you want the nitrates low, low, low as you can get for optimum growth, and the water changes will also remove any hormones that might be released to the water from the fish that might happen, which could slow growth of some lesser individuals over the dominant ones. the "only the strong survive" rule is always at play. so best to keep the water as clean as you possibly can for best growth.

As far as normal, well, hard to say, Any fry i've had of any species, some die, some don't seem to grow at all in a month while the main pack is average, and there are some that exceed the packs growth. Fish take as long as they need to grow, you can make some tweaks to speed it up some, or try to avoid stunting situations by doing water quality checks and water changes, or just resigning yourself to a daily water change.

And they should be approaching a half inch by 2 months time. they might start slow, and put on a spurt later. Should be around an inch in 5 months time.

you've raised the cacatuoides so you should have a good grasp on how it goes, water quality, and feedings ect. maybe those spawns you were blessed with exceptional fry, and now you're dealing with the F troop that just needs a little more attention to thrive.

I'd reckon to say my problem is not feeding them enough then. I've always fed about 2-3 times a day which is always brine shrimp until they are big enough to start accepting crushed flake, but I still continue brine shrimp the entire time. They are currently in a 10 gallon, nitrates stay below 20ppm with the plants so I don't do daily water changes, I haven't had to even with the cacatuoides , but I also didn't have to feed them that much. So I guess I will start feeding more and then do more water changes. Current temp is at 80F but I can adjust that if there is a more ideal temperature. Maybe their growth is normal if you're saying a half inch in 2 months, although I don't remember the exact time they were born. This is their first batch of fry compared to the cacatuoides so maybe it is just a weaker batch. If you want my other water numbers, hardness is very hard, pH is around 8.2. I realize that is not ideal for apistos, but I have been able to acclimatize them to it and they are always wanting to breed and the fry are surviving fine.

 

Thanks for some info! 10 gallon is a nice tank size, nitrates below 20 is good, I like to keep it below 5 for fry raising gives me room if I can't do it at some point and it starts creeping up, but 20 is good.

temp is good at 80F. I'm not seeing anything necessarily wrong there, except for feeding rate really. it's easy to underestimate the amount of food required, but for a fish, double the length is 8 times the body mass, when you take something that is a millimeter or two and try to get it out to 25-50-75mm, it requires more and more mass and more and more fuel in the furnace for them to put on that mass.

Stick to the regular feedings 3 minimum a day, and slide in some extra ones whenever you can as long as 2 hours has passed between them.

If your plan is speed growth and turnover, more food over the course of a day will build more mass and give them the ability to grow at a faster rate. it's why the "thrivers" that are always hungry and race for the food wind up the bigger fish of the bunch as they grow, because they are eating more than the rest are and greedy picking algae and food bits off the bottom constantly anything they can swallow.between feedings.

of course nothing wrong with taking your time also!

If the Agassizii is bothering you with how slow they grow, which is just a bit slower than the cacatuoides
don't try raising Apistogramma bitaeniata. those suckers hit some sort of wall at 1/2" and seem to dead stop taking forever to get the next half inch, even with a gallon of water per fish and frequent feeding of BBS, it's like nothing is happening after that first initial growth spurt.

Each one has a little different growth rate, all could be accelerated though extra feedings if you can manage them, but I'd say 3 feedings would be the minimum that need to happen a day, and you won't gain like months of time off the grow out, but you might gain a few days, a week or two maybe or they may be a bit larger than an inch when you get there to day 150.

 

Hi all,
sfletch77 A few years ago someone told me about hormones and raising fry. I did not fully believe what I was told so I just had to find out for myself how much truth there was in “ the story “

At the time I had hundreds of live bearers fry ( endlers) growing out. So with multiple small tanks I tried a simple experiment . In some tanks I continued to just change water every week once or twice . In other tanks I changed water much more often. Let’s say 3 or more times per week on average. I have no idea of the nitrates level as that has nothing to do with the hormone level. Hormones can not be measured by my equipment.

Having seen for myself I now believe strongly that regardless of feeding high quality high protein live foods multiple times per day fry grow much faster with multiple water changes per week.

I have raised both agassizii and cacatuoides fry but do not recall any difference in grow rates.
It’s also possible the parents are partly to blame for what you are dealing with?

 

Hi all,
sfletch77 A few years ago someone told me about hormones and raising fry. I did not fully believe what I was told so I just had to find out for myself how much truth there was in “ the story “

At the time I had hundreds of live bearers fry ( endlers) growing out. So with multiple small tanks I tried a simple experiment . In some tanks I continued to just change water every week once or twice . In other tanks I changed water much more often. Let’s say 3 or more times per week on average. I have no idea of the nitrates level as that has nothing to do with the hormone level. Hormones can not be measured by my equipment.

Having seen for myself I now believe strongly that regardless of feeding high quality high protein live foods multiple times per day fry grow much faster with multiple water changes per week.

I have raised both agassizii and cacatuoides fry but do not recall any difference in grow rates.
It’s also possible the parents are partly to blame for what you are dealing with?

I can also confirm the importance of growth hormones. Juveniles release a hormone that stunts the growth of the others. In smaller growout tanks this can lead to problems. This is the reason I immediately asked for waterchanges. It's indeed not just water quality alone. When I bred Malawis that was one of the reasons it turned out to be best to have bigger growouts than to change water too often. It was not a rare occasion the breeding tank and the growout tank were both the same size.

Just as a recent example, I got me a group of Dicrossus in late January. Juveniles about 2cm at purchase. I knew they had them at the store since Oktober, sold few and the fish did not grow. Maybe a 50 liter sales tank, over 50 of these fish.

I have them now in very clean (TDS below 50mg/l) and acidic water, bigger volume and less stocking density, 50% watrchange with pure RO a week and live Artemia nauplii 3 times a day, lots of infusoria from botanicals and leaf litter. Result: 2cm in roughly 2 months.

 

I honestly don't know about the growth horomones releases and if they suppress growth or not, like if it's myth or fact. But I know if you change water every day for growing out fish they seem to grow faster, and it could be the constant addition of the new water making the tank appear "bigger" in volume, and keeping bad stuff low, a constant inflow of new water like a river vs. A pond. But in a fish tanks case, more like a puddle.
Whether thats removing horomone build up or simply keeping the bad stuff so low its getting closer to simulating normal water exchange in the habitat and allowing more fish to grow bigger in a smaller volume of water, I'm not sure which or possible a combination of both.

It's also pretty clear to me if you remove the faster growers from the group, or the slower growers from the group of fry, and give them separate tanks to themselves everyone grows faster. Like if you sort the fry at 1 month intervals by size during grow out.
I don't know if it's the big ones holding back the smaller fry, or if it's just balancing the competition for food and space, but the littler guys can catch up when they don't have the bigger guys in there for whatever the cause.

I've even done this with a bullied juvenile. Gave him his own tank where he could feel safe and eat and in a month reintroduced him to the group, bigger and stronger and he was no longer bullied and just as big as the rest and went on to maturity with the group peacefully after that.

Growth hormone releases, or simply competition pressure, I can't say, but it does work to do really frequent small water changes and sorting fry by size once you can determine who's over achieving and who's underachieving to get faster/ better growth out of the spawn.

Frequent feedings absolutely help also, without them gaining in mass, the can't gain in size.

 

In the end all factors are part of it: food, water parameters, water quality, stocking density, stress levels, hormones... The more of these factors are optimized the better.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies, this helps a lot! I already have increased feedings and will be doing more water changes. I wasn't totally aware of the hormone factor so hopefully soon these little guys will finally start growing.