Apisto agassizi ?

[decal]

Hello,

I recently bought a few w/c "Apistogramma agassizi" from HAW. They have done surprisingly well in my planted tank using Houston water, in fact two have paired up and spawned! This unexpected success has increased my interest in the little guys, and I would like try to establish a small colony using some of the established strains.

And that leads me to my question. I looked into the sexing of A. agassizi, and I now realize that what I bought cannot be A. agassizi as their males have spade-shaped tails whereas mine has a tail more typical of other dwarf cichlid sp. with flaring at dorsal and ventral ends. Has anyone here seen HAW's stock and would venture a guess as to what they are? If I had to guess I would say A. cacatuoides, but to me a lot of w/c dwarfs spp. look the same.

[davemonkey]

Do you have a pic? I bought some "A. agassizi" once from another place and they turned out to be wild-caught A. caucatuoides. They also did well in my tap water and bred readily. They were a very small fish, about 2" when they started breeding. I don't have them anymore, but I'll see if I can find some old pics to post here for you to compare.

[davemonkey]

Here you go. Please excuse the photo quality. I've since gotten a better camera and gotten better at photogrpahy...but since I don't have these fish anymore, this is all I have. If these post correctly, they are in the following order:
Female in breeding colors; a couple fry; clutch of eggs (red due to the diet I was feeding them) ; the dominant male (his blue color doesn't show up as well in photos as it did in person)

[decal]

Hey, appreciate it. No pictures at the moment as the camera's on the fritz. I think it's pretty safe to say my pair are A. cacatuoides. They're on their second set of fry now. The first group got pretty far along, but I think killies in the tank picked off most of them. They're moving on to a new tank shortly, so hopefully I'll have more survivors from this set. I've been feeding them microworms which seem to go down well.

Anyone have experience with A. macmasteri? I understand they also do well in hard water. I might try adding a pair or trio in with my cacs if HAW still has some. It'd be nice to have a little red in there.

[davemonkey]

Anyone have experience with A. macmasteri? I understand they also do well in hard water. I might try adding a pair or trio in with my cacs if HAW still has some. It'd be nice to have a little red in there.

As a matter of fact, I have A. macmasteri right now in my 125. They are significantly larger than A. caucatuoides. I recommend either 1 male or 3 in a group. Otherwise, your dominant male will bully the subordinate male into constant seclusion (since there is nothing else to take his attention away). Sadly, my dominant male died of unknown causes (healthy as a horse, and then suddenly...dead). My subordinate male died shortly after, still too afraid to come out to eat even in the absence of the other male. So, I'm stuck with 4 females. Maybe I should make a trip to HAW to see if they have a good male!