Diving into dwarf cichlids… things to look for, and lookout for???

[Magnum Man]

Seems I’ve always had some form of cichlid, as long as I’ve been keeping fish… but when I was younger, it was all about big fish, then the colorful but scrappy African’s…
When I got back into fish recently, I tried some cockatoo apisto’s, back before I got my water straightened out, and they just didn’t last long in hard alkaline water… I’m now running RO, and have greater control
I’m setting up a South American tank with tetras and dwarf cichlids
1st dwarf cichlids, since I got my water fixed, arrived yesterday… I bought them in 3’s to start with… hoping I end up with at least 2 of each, that make it with mail order shipping… ( not really trying to breed them though ) the tank is a heavily filtered 55 gallon, so I would like this to be a “busy” tank… I got some German blue rams, some double red apisto’s, and some colorful orange fire apisto’s, that I had never seen before… of course everything came in tiny, but surprisingly colorful… the cockatoo’ I had before, never really colored up, probably because of the alkaline water… I got a fantastic piece of driftwood yesterday, that’s full of little hidey holes, that going to work great for all the little cichlids… most came in at 1 inch… these are a few of the lil orange fire apisto’s

 

[GaryE]

Apistogramma cacatuoides is sold in two main man made morphs, along with an unbelievable wealth of wild types. They will all interbreed, as the same species. The double red and triple red are usually the same fish - they just do a triage from the same broods to pick the redder ones out to sell them as the triples. The orange flash/fire ones have lost their patterning and are descended, I think, from yellow cacatuoides. In the wild, you get brown, yellow and blue, with varying fin sizes.

I doubt the holes in wood will interest them. You'll need lots of caves where they can dig, and you can expect warfare and murder from males kept together. They grow fast. You can expect a 1 inch caca to reach 3-4 inches rapidly. They aren't the dwarfest of dwarf cichlids.

Each cave should have an obstructed view. What they see, they own, and they kill to defend breeding territories. You will probably end up with one male. The females have their own territories, smaller than the male's.

 

[Magnum Man]

"but the pet store said they are peaceful"

I know... they are Cichlids... my Oscars were peaceful, after there was nothing left in the tank, that wouldn't fit in their mouths...

I figured lots of hidey holes... guessing from the sounds of it... it's time to move on to the tetras, I may be past capacity on the cichids already...

how are the Rams... any better than the apistos, at getting along???

 

[GaryE]

I will defer to others on rams. I can't keep that fish alive. I've bred 30+ Apisto species, kept and bred some of the most difficult Sa and African dwarf Cichlids, and I can never get anywhere with common rams.

Rams and peacock gobies (Tateurndina ocellicauda) are two fish beginners often do well with that have repeatedly kicked my butt. I managed a year unbred with wild caught rams, but the supposed German ones hate me. They look at me, glare at me, then roll over and float to the surface.

 

[Magnum Man]

on the cave thing, my Tilapia supplier has a document on breeding, & you need caves for the females with openings that don't face the male to prevent harassment... I expect I'll need to do the similar then for the dwarf Cichlids

 

[Magnum Man]

when I was doing some reading, it sounded like there ( at least used to be ) a huge problem with TB in blue rams... it was my understanding that TB in fish was often based on Asian fish farming techniques ( or at least commercial fish farming techniques )... not sure how prevalent TB is currently in aquarium fish... hopefully my Blue Rams are TB free...

 

[GaryE]

There was something with rams. I don't know if it has run its course, as most epidemics do. They were incredinbly delicate for a long time, and I know store owners who stopped bringing them in. But we're talking 20 years ago, and maybe that has gone into the rear view mirror. It was around the time I stopped keeping breeder modified fish anyway, so I never followed up.

I didn't do better with wild caughts. I bet they'd love my current water...

I had a friend who could breed fancy Rams like it was going out of style. He churned them out for stores like a machine. I would give him pairs of Apistogramma cacatuoides, and he could not breed them. Meanwhile, I had cacatuoides breeding like rumours. You can't predict sometimes...