Colin_BC
Fishaholic
Wooooooohoooooooo!!! After about 10 months of searching and some bad luck, I finally have some Apistogramma cacatuoides, aka cockatoo cichlids. I actually got ahold of a trio of fry in early november from a fish auction, but they all mysteriously died about 10 days later. I think the shock of auction day may have been a bit much, as both gorgeous killifish pairs (Autrale & Gardneri) I bought at the auction died around the same time. They were all slowly acclimated over 3-4 hours. The guy I got the cac's from has been really good from the start and said he'd gladly replace them anytime I want. He was also the one who talked me into joining the Vancouver Aquatic Hobbyist Club, and subsequently being entered into a members only grand prize raffle for a complete 32G Hagen Aquarium set/stand/canopy (everything you need to start included but gravel and fish) which I'm happy to say I won. Going to the auction was a birthday present for myself. Winning the tank set was a great surprise!Anyways, back to the cac's. My LFS owner has been trying to get some cac's for me for about 10 months. Last week he told me his supplier was finally getting a shipment of wild cacatuoides. I picked them up on Friday a half hour after he got them. They were still in the bags when i got there. As of last Friday when I got them, they had been in our Vancouver for a week and a half. He only brought 3 in, but they were to be held for me. I got a 2.5" male and two 1" females. The male is blue in colour with some (not lots) of red on it dorsal, tail, and anal fin making him a triple red. He's got nice yellow in his face and spends most of his time flaring his jaw to his reflection on the back of the tank. One of the females is bright yellow, whereas the other is a darker grey/blue. I'd say the female was in breeding condition by the colour, but I think both girls are way too young. They are only the size of small tetra's.
I plan on getting a few more from Dave, the guy for the auction. I know many of his have unbelievable colouring. The little male I had was entirely orange on all fins with tons of black marks that looked like flames. Once I get a nice male and a couple nice females from him, I'll evetually cross the tank-bread male with the two wild females, and the wild male with the two tank-bread triple red females.
Some pic's are below of the new wild cactuoides. I will have much better quality pics eventually, but right now the male in particular is quite shy making photo's very difficult.
Here's the male and the grey female, as well as a 2-3 month old platy.
And one of the male flared.
And the yellow female.
and another...
These two are just to show the nice killies I briefly had from the auction. next time I'm going to acclimate them overnight if need be. The orange lyretail is the Aphyosemion australe male, and the blue/red killie is the Aphyosemion gardneri male.
Colin
