# Apistogramma cacatuoides Spawn



## Tropicana

Hey guys!, well this is absolutely awesome as i found my little female to have laid a ton of eggs!. The parents are guarding them wonderfully and the funny thing is they spawned a day after the pair of German blue rams i have in the same tank spawned. Here are some pics, Enjoy.










Here are their neighbors. The rams spawned on the other side of the tank.










And a full tank shot


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## Jackson

WOW!

Congrats man 

So fast LOL


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## SAMhap

nice!!!
how many gallon is the tank?


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## Tropicana

The tank is a 20 gal. I have the rams in there at the moment until I fix up my 180gal. But it seems all the fish love it, even the tetras are spawning lol.


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## igor.kanshyn

That's nice. I love that apisto


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## Tropicana

Yeah, when I first bought him I really was not sure how he would turn out. This is what he looked like then.


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## Kerohime

That Blue Ram in your picture is gorgeous!

I am looking for some of those!


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## SAMhap

big transformation!
looks very good and healthy. yeah, where did u get your blue rams?


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## igor.kanshyn

Tropicana said:


> Yeah, when I first bought him I really was not sure how he would turn out. This is what he looked like then.


Yes, it's funny. It looks like albino version of some fish.


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## Tropicana

SAMhap said:


> big transformation!
> looks very good and healthy. yeah, where did u get your blue rams?


The blue ram female was purchased from Big Als Newmarket looking like this. Ive had her just over a month.









The male ram is a year and a half old fry of mine. She chose him over his brother.


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## Jackson

That apisto was so small in that pic. How big was he?

If you get a good amount of fry put me down for a few


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## Tropicana

In that pic(when he was younger) about 1 1/2 inches. When i get some fry everyone here will know lol. It was their first time spawning so it will be a while. I want to do as little of the work (raising fry) as possible.


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## Cypher

This will be really interesting if both species are able to bring their eggs to term. Wonder if there'll be any territorial issues when they're raising their young.


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## Tropicana

Unfortunately the rams did not remove the unfertilized eggs so they grew mold and killed the live eggs. the Apisto eggs weren't in the greatest location and i think the female being so young didn't take great care of them. Both pairs are learning though so its a start. I assume the Apistos will find a better place to spawn next time and i think the rams will do much better, they were 8 hours from wigglers and they finally started pecking the dead eggs which infected the others. I did see about 8 left with eyes but i assume they were remove during the pecking also.

I will leave both pairs in there and let them spawn and hopefully figure it out. Once the fry get to the wiggler stage i may remove them. I might possibly wait until free swimming but it can be hard to get that far even, at least with rams at times.


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## Tropicana

Well today I have my first Wiggler!, I wish I could get a pic but holy crap its tiny. I moved the eggs and I counted only 30ish so I dont know how many fry will survive this batch. but its a start. Woo


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## Tropicana

I counted about 27wigglers so we will see how many make it to free swimming(hoping all) in the next couple days. Ill be sure to get video/pics when they do!.

did a recount of the fry.

36. the 27 was more of a guess.


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## Jackson

Very nice 

I hope they make it 

Looking forward to the vid.


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## Tropicana

Wiggler picture!, Here they are wiggling away their yolk sacs. They sure are tiny still... Wish i could have got a better pic but i don't have a macro lens.

They are residing in half a coconut.


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## Jackson

Nice 

What are you going to feed them?


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## Tropicana

I have a couple banana worm cultures going so that should get them started.


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## igor.kanshyn

Tropicana said:


> I counted about 27wigglers so we will see how many make it to free swimming(hoping all) in the next couple days. Ill be sure to get video/pics when they do!.
> 
> did a recount of the fry.
> 
> 36. the 27 was more of a guess.


This is nice. 
I hope they will turn into adults


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## Tropicana

Well i am down to 10 fry, and now know a better way of raising them. So I have learned from my mistake. I also now have 100 German blue ram eggs which I will try to hatch too with the apistos. The apistos will probably spawn again in the next 6 or 7 days so ill try again with them soon.


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## Tropicana

Okay I have 5 fry, one large one and 4 smaller ones. maybe its a male? Anyways Bad news.

The past 5 days the male was acting odd, of course he did his usual routine defend territory eat go and hide in weeds. Well it seems he didn't eat for the last 3 days but still hid and was not nearly as active as normal. I noticed it but i assumed he was just hiding.

Well yesterday i went to check on him I was able to scoop him up with my hand. Completely not normal, he was breathing slowly, stomach looked normal, coloration normal and when i released him he barely swam away only to bump into plants and go sit on the bottom. I knew something was really wrong but there was nothing physically wrong with him. I mean a week ago he was just chasing the rams spawning with the female and eating like a champion.

Cause of death so far, Unknown?... I cant really say old age, i mean i had him for about a year, before that he didn't even have coloration so he had to be youngish. 6 months?... Weird.

Ah well, RIP fishy. Hopefully your fry survive and will continue to carry your genes.


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## Jackson

Sorry to hear that  he was a great looking fish.

I hope the fry do well. 

Maybe the stress of the spawn got to him?


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## Tropicana

I wouldn't think the stress from it did, he really didn't do anything else after spawning. I mean the female did all the work and he just went and swam around etc. It was very odd.


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## tranceaddict

wow awesome stuff.


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## Rexter9x

Odd, my female apisto did the same thing about 1-2 months after she spawned. Looked great, just not active then died.


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## Riceburner

That sucks. +1 hopefully the fry carry on...


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## Tropicana

Odd indeed. Me too Riceburner, they are doing great so far...


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## Stephen

pics or they don't exist...


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## Tropicana

Bleh.. they passed.. I failed. Paying more attention to my other spawns now though.


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## igor.kanshyn

Tropicana said:


> Bleh.. they passed.. I failed. Paying more attention to my other spawns now though.


What are you breeding now?


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## Tropicana

Apistogramma cacatuoides Flash orange, German blue rams, and Apistogramma baenschi inka 50. I have some apisto fry and tons of ram fry atm. no inka 50 yet though.


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## Tropicana

The Flash orange cacatuoides just spawned! Looking forward to seeing what happens.


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