Apistogramma eunotus

[kizshrimp]

A friend has had this species going for at least 10 years now. I remember obtaining the original imported stock for him at the time. The subject of this post is the orange-tailed colour morph. 

 

I recently obtained a couple of pairs as I'm getting my fishroom going again and my friend is essentially packing his up. It wouldn't do to let the species slip out of the hobby here and have to rely again on imported stock. Too many great things have already been lost as breeders leave the field. 

 

Anyway, here's a pic of mum with a baby visible to the lower left, and fairly tight crop of dad's head. Sorry about that - I'd love to show the whole fish but had to crop to reduce image size to post. 

 

cheers, Kyrill

 

[Squiggle]

Very nice dude, always have a soft spot for Apisto's.

[kizshrimp]

Ah Squiggle, I've got the same soft spot for Apistos... and my heart has been broken before by these lovely but often difficult little fish. These eunotus have been very obliging for me - I've only had them about a month and already the second female will emerge with more babies soon. The first lot of babies are really growing fast, like Rams can do. 

cheers, Kyrill

[sushant]

The second pic looked more like a ram, amazing specimen.

[kizshrimp]

Another apology for this thread left hanging for a month. I've got a full body shot of the male this time which should make the difference to Rams more apparent. There's also an interesting story to follow - cichlid keepers may get a laugh. 

My second female has laid infertile eggs twice now and I have to wonder if there's something wrong with her. That's not the story BTW. 

 

The first female is an excellent mum and guarded her babies fiercely for about a month. Then she laid a new batch of eggs and that's where her maternal instincts became a little confused. For those who haven't kept New world substrate spawning Cichlids before, the mother keeps the fry together by carefully catching those that stray from the group in her mouth and spitting them back into the group. Female Apistogramma also signal the fry with their black pelvic fins and while this is incredibly effective, a fair bit of "mouthing" still goes on especially as the fry get older and more adventurous. Mum would go from fanning her new eggs to catching an older baby and spitting it into the cave where she thought it should be - she couldn't separate the two opposing maternal instincts. The older babies were really confused by the attention and rolling into submissive postures as mum approached to catch them. She couldn't fit them completely in her mouth so the tail would be hanging out as she delivered them one by one to her cave. It really was funny to watch but they quickly learned to hide as mum came looking for them. Anyway, I decided to move them out but unfortunately something has gone wrong and her next batch have never made it past the wriggler stage. She'll get a break from parenting for a couple of weeks which I guess is a good thing for her. The first lot of babies are doing well but their new home is filling up with hydra from the steady supply of baby brine.