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Marcus,

When you say you have a breeding pair then I assume they breed, right? I have a pair, but no breeding. They are in my 125G (see log in planted forum for details) with quite a few other fishies and my female always seems to have her mating dress on. Male and female get along very well, but the longest I have not seen the female was maybe one day. All other days she comes up for feeding and I assume that means that she does not have a nest of eggs or fry somewhere hidden in the jugle.

Do you have a special setup to breed them?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Mine are breeding, yes. My setup, soft acidic water. As for yours, my guess is that they have bred. IME, when the female disapears for a day, they have eggs somewhere. However, that does not mean the eggs will make it through the night, hence you see her the next day. I have found that Apistos are not the most agressive protectors of their eggs. My female agazzisi will sit in her cave with eggs, that is until the food hits the water. Then out she comes, and eats, and takes her time getting back to the nest. For this reason, I always give my Apistos their own tank for breeding. I have watched a cory just pass right by an apisto and in the cave and devour all the eggs before I could get my hand in there to pull the cave out. The female Apisto just sat there and watched. But, when the fry are out, then IME the females have become more aggressive and protective. I don't know why all this happens, its just what I have mostly observed about them.

The one other thing I use almost always to get them to spawn, is live black worms. For some reason these induce them to spawn about 99% of the time for me.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Thank you so much for the info, I appreciate it. I guess it is worthwhile thinking about getting them their own tank to attempt on having some fry, but that will be in a while as I don't have over 100 tanks available like you do

Also thanks for the food tip, I may try that with my cacs as well, not that I finally have females. And they are in a tank almost by themselves (soon - the females are now still in QT), with only 6 Otos as mates in a 40G.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club