Apistogramma cactuoides

joeyg2100

joeyg2100

AC Members
Oct 31, 2005
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I finally got a pair of these fish orange flash color for my 35 gallon hex. They have been in the tank for 5 days now. The male look awsome and the female just looks so cute. I noticed this morning that the male was already hitting the female in the side with his tail, but she wanted nothing to do with him so she just swam away. The femail is about 1" and the male is double her size, so are my fish old enough to spawn yet?

I am so excited about getting a pair of these. I was first going to go with blue rams, but decided on these as I heard and read they are hardier than blues. And they also will do better in my water conditions. As I have a ph of 7.8 and hardness of 60. I know they aren't the best, but that is what my tap water is.
 
1 inch may be a little too small, but she can breed, i had a pair a while ago, the female was about an inch and had about 2-4 clutches
 
I've had cacatuoides spawn at one inch (a little less actually). They are a particularly short lived species so they seem to make up for it by spawning at a very young age. The females rarely live more than two years.

Your ph is a little high but the hardness is well within thier range. Cacatuoides is known for spawning in harder more alkaline waters. In fact I've had several species (Hongsloi, Gibbiceps, and Trifasciata) spawn and even bring up fry in my old tap water (ph=7.2 and of hardness=120ppm). Several other species spawned, but I never saw free swimmers from them (not necesarily due to water chem). Of course with other fish I've tried everything I could to get spawns with no success. Good news is that cacatuoides is the one species that always came through for me.

Good luck

(blood worms, mysis, good dry food and lots of water changes are the key)
 
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