New apistogramma Cacatuoides pair

[Billsgate]

Bought myself some apistos 2 days ago, thought I'd share a pic! I really like them so far, yesterday they were already doing a mating dance, but I'll have to feed them some more frozen foods and high quality flakes before they'll start spawning I think, the female looks to be too small to have eggs already.

[plecoperson]

I love them-nice picture, too! Future fish for me--they are really appealing.

[rich311k]

Very pretty, good luck with them.

[Jchillin]

Whoa, nice acquisition Thomas. Looks like you found a great pair.

[LandGhoti]

They are both very pretty! Looks like the male is "dressed to impress." LOL

[Billsgate]

They're doing well, establishing their territory. I added a coconut cave for them today, and tonight they are doing the 'mating dance' even more actively. The female surprises me, it chases away my biggest female betta (i have 3 in there with them), which is almost twice her size. I also added some peat to my newly aquired filter (got two fliters running on that 20 gal now), so the lowering of pH might have something to do with the courting behaviour.
Once they do spawn I plan on setting up a seperate 10 gal for the 3 female bettas, have an extra seeded filter, so they can be moved pretty quickly.
The pic doesn't really do the male justice in his colouring, but I have to use flash because he wont sit still long enough.
Tnx for the comments!

[Zagz]

Really good looking fish! Congrats on a nice pickup!

[kennef]

how do apistos compare to rams and kribs on the aggression scale? i havent had any... but i would love to know more about them...

[Billsgate]

I have kept neither rams or kribs, so I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you that Rams are apistos as well.......apistogramma ramirezi.
I have read different thing about the cacatuoides on the internet, some say both male and female chase away everything that comes too close to their breeding cave, other reports say you should remove the male and let the female raise the fry since the male would eat the eggs. Others say these fish breed in harem as well (one male, several females). I think this is best tried in a larger species only tank.