This Apistogramma, which I'm told is either a trifasciata or something closely related, should gain some quick popularity in the hobby. The male has attractive finage and a bright red 'flag' of a tail. The female during breading and fry care, has the typical Apistogramma yellow coloration with jet black markings.
The pair of fish came to me through a business partnership, but only stayed a couple of weeks. I was disappointed when they were sold, as I hadn't had a chance to get them to breed. Imagine my surprise when I attempted to net the pair and found forty or fifty free-swimming fry under some oak leaves!
The adult pair had been kept alone in a twenty gallon long tank, with an outside power filter, submersible heater set for eighty degrees, a clay flower pot, and a bunch of oak leaves from the tree in my front yard. The water was rain water; pH of 6.0 and almost no measurable hardness. They had been fed a wide variety of foods; frozen, live, and dry prepared.
The eggs must have been laid on the oak leaves somewhere, as I had periodically checked the flower pot and anywhere else would have been visible. I can't really say how long it took the eggs to hatch or fry to swim, because they were free swimming when I first laid eyes on them. It appeared that they hadn't been swimming long, so I assume it was their first or second day.
I left the fry in the twenty long, although I did unplug the outside filter and drop in a sponge filter. Water changes were about twenty-five percent twice a week. They were fed twice a day with microworms or newly hatched brine shrimp. They grew quickly and soon outgrew their home.
When the young were about six weeks old, the opportunity arose to put them into a large tank, so they all went into a 135 gallon. The difference in growth rate was amazing. With all the water changes in the smaller tank, I never thought the fish would be over crowded, but I was very mistaken! Even though I only changed water in the big tank once a week, the fry seemed to grow overnight.
After two weeks in the larger quarters, the largest of the fry are over one half inch in length and eating the same foods as the adult apistos. I'm told by more knowledgeable dwarf cichlid breeders that the 'Rio Mamore Blue' form of this fish is actually one and the same as the red. It will be interesting to see if some of the fry turn out to be the blue form.