Breeding Apistogramma bitaeniata

My experiences breeding Apistogramma bitaeniata.

Writen by Max Pedley
Illustrations by Steven Chester

As a brief overview, Apistogramma bitaeniata is a species of South American dwarf cichlid found throughout a number of regions within the Amazon, Ucayali and Napo rivers. Most of the imported specimens into the trade will have arrived directly from Peru. The variant which this article will focus on is known as informally as the “blue morph”.

In terms of closely related species, A.bitaeniata is understood to be a member of the A.agassizii group, though it does not seem to share a close relation. In my opinion A. bitaeniata appears to share the most similarities with another Peruvian species, Apistogramma eremnopyge.

Breeding:

I acquired my first pair of Apistogramma bitaeniata in early 2017. Initially the pair were not fully grown, the male measuring around 6cm TL, with the female slightly smaller at about 4cm TL. The pair were placed into one of my standard 40L cubes. To many this may seem a little small for a breeding pair of dwarves, but i have had many successes in this size tank.

In this aquarium was placed a number of pieces of bogwood, a media bag full of peat and a large handful of dried oak leaves. A mixture of 50% RO water and 50% tap water were used, resulting in negligible KH and only around 1GH. Soft water! the water quickly turned a tea brown and once added, the fish disappeared to the back, to not be seen for the next three weeks, apart from brief glimpses during feeding. Initially I was worried by just how shy this species was, and at one point I had to wonder if the female was still alive.

Food was comprised mainly of live and frozen fare, with bloodworm, brine shrimp, daphnia and tubifex all being offered. Pellet and flake was largely ignored. Following a week of heavy feeding roughly 3 months into keeping this fish, I saw the sight ever Apisto keeper dreams of seeing. A cocky female in the centre of the tank showing bright yellow breeding dress, and adorning jet black ventral fins. Always a sight i get excited about. This species will show two lateral spots. The next day this female had disappeared into a cave and created a mound of sand blocking the entrance.

The male attended to the female and cave for the next few days until the eggs hatched. Unfortunately I did not see the wigglers, or where they were moved to, but instead on day 5/6 the male had brought a group of circa 15 free swimming fry to the front of the tank. The female also had a small group in the back corner. Fry are absolutely tiny, maybe 2/3s the size of most day 1 free swimming fry. Thankfully they had a hell of an appetite. Daily feedings of artemia nauplii and microworm helped really pack the fry out. At around 2-month-old, the fry were feeding well on frozen and prepared foods (the latter of which the wild caught adults still refused to eat), and although the adults showed varying amounts of aggression to one another, the youngsters were left well alone.

Overall i did find this species difficult to get going initially, but 1 year down the line i have successfully raised two batches of fry, which I deem a success. Once fry are free swimming, so long as suitable live foods can be provided, they are very straight forward.

Water parameters:

pH 6-6.5

KH 0-1

GH 1

Temperature 22-23Oc

As a side note, both myself and others (Steven Chester included), have noticed that there is a distinct lack of females within both imported wild caught and captive bred populations. I am not too sure of the reasoning behind this, but as a bit of a mini experiment, I decided that I would keep this species at a lower temperature in the hopes that this would stimulate the development of more females. Looking at the first batch, I would say that the sex ratio is roughly 60% male, and 40% female, which would point towards a slight success. It will certainly be interesting to see how the next group sexes out.

Thank you for taking your time to read this article, and hopefully this will be the first of many more!