March 07, 2021
The Apistogramma sp. "D45" was found and collected in Colombia in 2017, in beautiful blackwater:
In the bag, when they were collected:
Males, after brought home, in aquariums:
When the water is more clear than black, they mostly look like this:
When the water now is dark blackwater, the males look like this in my tanks:
When in dark blackwater, the females most of the time are with fry and/or wear breeding colors:
The Apistogramma sp. "D45" seems to be a local form of the A 165, Apistogramma cf. piaroa.
Feb 14, 2021
I selected a wild male and a female from one of my Apistogramma psammophila groups. They have never been a pair, or spawned.
I gave them a 160 liter tank for themselves: ph: 4.2 Conductivity: 70 microSiemens/cm Temp: 25°C
Blackwater with color from Alder cones, Oak leaves and peat.
The only company they have is a small mixed group of Nannostomus eques
and Nannostomus unifasciatus.
They spawned after a while, and today the father was the one to bring out the freeswimming fry! The female is so far not allowed to approach the
small ones:
Jan 12, 2021
In contrast to the Apistogramma sp. "D52", the Apistogramma sp. "D58" is very prolific.
The first wild pair to breed
now has youngsters approaching adult size:
This last pair out to breed
now has at least 104 fry!
The parents with some of them:
Please let me know if you want some of them!
The dither fish are a few very interesting Nannostomus sp. aff. digrammus which I collected in Colombia
in December 2019.
They have several features similar to Nannostomus digrammus (FOWLER, 1913), but this species has never been reported from Colombia.
In addition, my specimens show a tertiary horizontal stripe, which in the Nannostomus digrammus is absent.
Males:
Females:
Jan 11, 2021
My wild Apistogramma sp. "D52" are so far, in my tanks, not as prolific as many other Apistogramma species.
I have never had more than 20 fry growing up from any of my wild pairs.
These first time parents now have only 6 small fry:
Dec 12, 2020
My wild Apistogramma sp. "D48" may be a Colombian form taxonomically closely related
to
Apistogramma inornata (STAECK, 2003), which was described from Venezuela.
They now have fry again. The females show some minor variations in their breeding dresses:
There are fry from three spawnings (from two different females) in the tank, without any problems.
Here some older fry swim in the background, and a few of the youngest ones with their mother in front.
The males of A. sp. "D48" can show very variable appearance:
and yesterday one of them looked like this:
Amazingly, in this species the females' dorsal fins have reddish tips, and are more serrated than those of the males:
