Apistogramma macmasteri was the first Apisto I ever kept. Now I have 13 different varieties.
I placed the pair in a 30-gallon tall aquarium. Put a thin layer of gravel on the bottom of the tank and placed a sponge filter and a heater into the tank, for filtration and to keep the temperature at 76° F. I placed a live Anubius barteri plant (eight inches tall) in the center of the tank to separate the filter from the five inch clay flower pot. The male was three inches in length and the female was one and a quarter inches in length. The pair spawned on July 1, 1995. I took the eggs from the parents and placed them in a fine mesh net (five inches in diameter) and set it on the rim of the parents' tank. The parents did not give any notice of the net hanging from above them.
I do not use chemicals for controlling fungus on any of the eggs from the many species that I spawn.
The eggs hatched two days later and after another six days they were free swimming. I then began feeding the fry newly hatched brine shrimp. After a couple of days I knew the fry were eating so I moved them to a ten gallon tank with a sponge filter and a couple baby Ramshorn snails to clean up any excess food.
I find that by collecting the eggs every other week I am able to hatch larger batches of fry. For instance, with the macmasteri, I could hatch over 250 fry by placing the eggs in a net to hatch compared to the 40 - 50 fry I would eventually get from the parents when they were left to raise them. After another month I removed the fry to a 55-gallon tank for growing out.
A month later the male started looking sickly. I moved the female to a community tank but didn't know what to do with the male. I did not have a 'hospital' tank to place him in. The only available tank was a three and a half gallon tall tank with two inches of peat moss on the bottom. This tank was either going to kill him or cure him. To my amazement, three days later the male was healed and was acting perky again!
On August 9, 1995, I purchased an R.O. unit (Reverse Osmosis Filtering Unit) to make my water softer than the 130ppm's that I did have. I had also purchased more Apistogrammas. Since the male macmasteri was doing much better in the 'peat' tank I decided to set up a 20-gallon tank with some fine sand and a sponge filter with the R.O. (Reverse Osmosis) system. I placed the male and female into this tank. Since then I have been getting fry every month from the pair. (I say once a month because I leave the eggs and fry with the pair and when the fry are one month old the pair spawns again while still caring for their older young.) If I took the eggs from the pair, they would spawn every ten days. I would rather have them care for their eggs and young than hatch them myself because they can do a much better job than I can with my artificial hatching method. Less headache and worry on my part!
With the R.O. system my water is pH 7.0 and my hardness is 10ppm.
A friend of mine, from whom I get most of my Apistos, David Soares, said that my macmasteri are not supposed to be spawning in that high of a pH. I told him maybe not but no one has told the breeders.
Apistogramma and other Dwarf Cichlids are really great species of fish to keep. They are not very aggressive toward other fish. The only time I found them to be aggressive is at spawning time and the males will fight to be the only male to spawn with the female. Right now I only have one female with my male macmasteri. I have another species, Apistogramma steindachneri, that has three females that he spawns with. This male has been spawning with only one female and then today, after several months, has spawned with one of the other females. The first female had three day old fry in her flower pot when he spawned with another female. His present female may object. I will just have to wait and see.