Apistos are not the easiest to keep as they are pretty sensitive to water quality and such. They typically like warmer water around 80 degrees and slightly acidic... less than 7.0. Also, I would not recommend them for a 10 gallon if you wish to breed them... they can be quite aggressive.
Do you want what kind of Apistos they are? Some seem much less aggressive than others. I have a double red Agassizzi (sp?) that is just plain mean! I bought him and two females at the same time and put them in a 20 gallon regular tank when I got them home. The male beat on and killed both females with 5 days of having them home. Now, no matter what tank I put him in, he is the bully! And that is in tanks with fish much bigger than he is! Right now, he's in my 55 gallon with several Blue rams that are fully grown, some Clown loaches, a full grown Bolivian Ram, and 2 full-grown bristle-nose plecos and he picks on all of them. In a 10 gallon, there would be dead fish!
I have not had any success at breeding them as these were the first and only ones I have been able to locate locally. And since the females were killed...
I did find a couple of 'assorted' Apistos in a LFS about 2 weeks ago that I think are Agassizzi females, but need to get them quite a bit bigger before trying them with the male. Then, I'll try putting them in a 20 gallon LONG that has lots of hiding places for the females. And heavy plants seems to help give the 'victims' some cover.
If you check out
www.thekrib.com , they have lots of good info on the different Apistos and it seems some are much better suited for a community tank and easier to breed.
Best of luck,
Bill C.
