Apistos should be on their way!

[JRagg]

Well I've definitely found a local breeder.

Managed to find an aquarium society and a pet store run by the local president of HAAS (Heart of America Aquarium Society). Apparently his father-in-law breeds apistos and has a ton of double-reds, triple-reds, and orange flash apistos. They said they would trade out the male that I've got for a female. I'm sure it will be more like me giving them the extra male, and then buying the female, but the smaller male in my tank won't last if I put a female in. I've let the watersprite get extremely overgrown just so that he has a place to hide.

Talk about a gold mine. I just wish I hadn't ordered online in the first place. I feel like I got scammed. I haven't gotten a response from Dave, and honestly I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll get a female from the local breeder. I guess that's a good thing too, because now I know 100% that the male and female won't be from the same bloodline, and should have good offspring. Maybe if they spawn I'll set up a fry tank for them. 10g kits are cheap, especially when you run them barebottom .

 

[Guest]

That' great, The best thing to do to insure spawning with the Orange flash and cockato is to mix your water 50/50 50% tap and 50% RO or distilled. They love that and the % is like a perfect mix for when yu get eggs you cn move them and use either water types to raise the eggs in with out having to adjust the eggs.

 

[crazyred]

Just out of curiosity.....any idea as to why Apistodave has taken down EVERY single one of his listing on Aquabid??? He's one of those guys that always has stuff listed and there's NOTHING there. Just wondering......I wasn't going to order or anything.

 

[JRagg]

That's a very good question. His auctions usually expire and get reposted on Saturdays.

Still no response from him, I'm going to try emailing him again tonight.

 

[crazyred]

Seems a little suspect to me. Inquiring minds want to know. LOL

 

[Guest]

I've heard him and Uwe Romer are going to South America on fish find. Then I've also heard he wasn't doing to good health wise. But that's hear say so don't quote me on that. I do know he has been traning a replacment a few months back. I talked to him on the frist of April when I ordered my Trifascata trio. the order form wasn't in davs writing. I also got a e-mail from his company with a differnt e-mail address.

 

[crazyred]

Yeah, i just noticed that all his items are back up now, so maybe someone is taking over for him.

 

[JRagg]

Ok, I kind of feel on the ropes again as to whether the smaller one is a female or not.

Dave sent me an email and said that with the orange flash variety, the females don't always have black pectoral and ventral fins. He said that the dorsal spines were the better way to sex them.

The larger one is 100% certain a male. His dorsal fin is exactly what I expect. The first three spines are much much longer than the rest.

The smaller one (maybe 1/2" body) does not have those spines. The front "spine" is the same length as the ones in the center. It also has 1 or 2 black spines in the front, whereas the larger one has all orange spines. The lateral black stripe on the smaller one is MUCH more defined than on the larger one. There are differences between the two.

I think I may have to wait and see what I have. The smaller one is not large enough to be sexed by an amatuer such as myself.

 

[Guest]

Ok that's true on must of the Cacatuoides spices but the Orange flash is a color morph and that mkes it a lot harder to use the fin color as a marker for sex. This is a picture of a true female flash.

It's totally differnt from the one you've got, but that dosn't mean your's isn't a true orange flash female. It's all in the color morph of the spices. Most all color morph's of any of the Apistogramma spices the femle will take on two sometimes three differnt looks with at least two differnt body styles and to differnt IDing features. There is also what is knowen as a dermanet male. where it is sold or bought as a female and it turns out to be a male.
here in this picture it loks like a female with al the marking of a female Ap. agssizii red tale

It has the round tail black in the ventral or leg fins with black throw the dorsal fin. But here's same fish not 2m later.

 

[JRagg]

You were definitely right Weasel. I think I was in denial about it, and I wanted to pretend that I had a female.

I'm taking my smaller male in to the LFS tomorrow and trading him out for a female. I guess trading isn't the best word for it. I should say I'm giving them the male and I'm buing a female. I'm just glad that I'll be able to find a home for the smaller male.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing, and I'll have some pictures of them by tomorrow night I'm sure. Even though my camera stinks, I'll post some blurry ones for you guys and gals .

Thanks again for all of your help. I probably would have just banged my head against a wall for hours trying to figure this out (and still not figured it out) if it weren't for you.

 

[Guest]

NP Apistogramma's are my thing. I love them and I'm working on getting 3 more spices of them. I have maded a deal like you. I'm sending him 2prs of my gold triple red female triple red male / mix he's sending me 2 prs of inka's and a pr of vegjtie

 

[JRagg]

So now for a gravedig and an update on this situation.

I will NEVER deal with apistodave again.

If you’ve followed this at all, you know he sent me 3 males. I ended up returning one to a local store and getting a female from them. I did not leave feedback on aquabid for this auction. I was unhappy with it and figured that it would be better not to leave feedback at all than to leave negative feedback for a seller with a good reputation. I did not want my feedback record getting blemished. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but it is.

So I go to leave feedback for an auction I won last week and I see that I have feedback from dave. This is what he had to say:

Negative:Won aucion never followed through

I sent him the following message:

What in the world do I have negative feedback from you for?!?!? I
paid you, you sent me the fish, and now I have them in my tank. I did
NOT leave feedback for you since you sent me 3 males. I figured it would be better to leave no feedback than to leave negative feedback. It was cheaper for me to find the fish locally than to pay for shipping again. I have paypal receipts to your account. Check your records. My email address is jragg@someaccount.net.
Sincerely, Jeff Ragg

I am furious right now. My rating is now a 1/3 because of this disorganized person. If he can’t keep financial records straight, maybe he shouldn’t be running a business. On top of that, excellent spelling in the feedback dave. It shows true professionalism.

This is my own personal “buyers beware” to anyone considering from ordering from dave.

 

[maxwell1295]

Whoa! That really sucks...

Thanks for the warning!

 

[Menagerie]

I hate it when negative feedback is improperly given!! BTW--I'm taking your last name and e-mail addy out of your post--this will avoid any unintended spamming from bots (or whatever) that scan for e-mails.

 

[JRagg]

I appreciate you pulling that info out. I guess I should have thought about that. That is my "clean" email address for the time being (no spammers yet).

Yeah, the best part about it is that he didn't even send me an email saying that he was going to leave negative feedback. I paid the man within hours of receiving the invoice from him. I ALWAYS do that on auction sites. He's also terrible about responding to emails, so I'm kind of doubting that I'll get any sort of response from him. I guess we'll see. I still have 8 days to leave feedback for him, which if this is not resolved will be negative.

**EDIT**

Well my assumptions that this would go uncorrected were wrong. I probably shouldn't have posted here when I was as angry as I was. Dave changed his feedback that he had left for me. He apologized saying that he had gone too fast and made a mistake. Unfortunately aquabid doesn't have the same (user friendly) interface that ebay has, so I guess it's easier to make mistakes like this (items don't get marked as invoiced, paid, shipped, and received). Possibly partly my fault for not leaving feedback for him or telling him my intentions for not leaving any feedback.

In any case, the problem is fixed now and I hope to let this thread die.

 

[sherry]

he did a bad thing and took it back. It sounds like a nightmare sale, and I won't be tempted to buy from him. Some great breeders on apistogramma.com