# My latest breeding project - Apistogramma Rio Mamore



## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

A few months ago I went to Aquariums West with no intention to buy fish but I stumbled on the most stunning pair of apistos that I had ever seen. They were expensive, but being an apisto freak I splashed out and bought them. After a few weeks they started to spawn regularly but I had them in a community tank so the fry got eaten every time. Eventually I decided to remove a batch of fry and raise them. They are now about 3 months old and the biggest ones are almost 1cm long. There's almost 40 of them. I've raised apistos before but I never managed to keep that many fry alive for so long. Pics below, snapped last night at their dinner time. This is a 10g and I'll eventually move them into 33g long to take them to adulthood. Fingers crossed.



















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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Here's a pic (from the internet) of an adult male Rio Mamore. Mine looked just like this. Unfortunately he died on me a couple of months ago. I have no idea what happened to him. He was stunning.










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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

crazy72 said:


> Here's a pic (from the internet) of an adult male Rio Mamore. Mine looked just like this. Unfortunately he died on me a couple of months ago. I have no idea what happened to him. He was stunning.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


OMG, that's probably one of the most beautiful cichlids I've ever seen. RIP little guy. Sorry you lost your male.


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> OMG, that's probably one of the most beautiful cichlids I've ever seen. RIP little guy. Sorry you lost your male.


Yes, they are stunning. Now you know why I forked out the hefty price!

It's exciting to look at the little guys now and think that they'll turn into such beautiful fish. I am looking forward to seeing the tail colour up red on the males.

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## giraffee (Mar 28, 2011)

crazy72 said:


> Here's a pic (from the internet) of an adult male Rio Mamore. Mine looked just like this. Unfortunately he died on me a couple of months ago. I have no idea what happened to him. He was stunning.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Stunning apisto... Never had a chance to see Rio Mamore live, they are so rare. What kind of breeding setup did you have for them? Do they require really low pH?

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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

giraffee said:


> Stunning apisto... Never had a chance to see Rio Mamore live, they are so rare. What kind of breeding setup did you have for them? Do they require really low pH?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk


They are very rare, yes. I had never seen them live either. I put them in a community tank. 75G planted, with sand as substrate and lots of wood and caves. Nothing special. pH is just tap water. Somewhere between 6.0 and 6.5. Now you might point out that the male died, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a pH issue. He was super healthy and active, brightly coloured, and breeding every 3 weeks or so. One day I saw him with his jaw seemingly locked open. The next day he was dead. I have no idea what happened. The female is still in that tank and doing great. The fry are in a 10G tank with the same water parameters.


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## giraffee (Mar 28, 2011)

crazy72 said:


> They are very rare, yes. I had never seen them live either. I put them in a community tank. 75G planted, with sand as substrate and lots of wood and caves. Nothing special. pH is just tap water. Somewhere between 6.0 and 6.5. Now you might point out that the male died, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a pH issue. He was super healthy and active, brightly coloured, and breeding every 3 weeks or so. One day I saw him with his jaw seemingly locked open. The next day he was dead. I have no idea what happened. The female is still in that tank and doing great. The fry are in a 10G tank with the same water parameters.


Interesting.. I had similar situation with young ram in a community tank with eco complete substrate - the same locked open mouth in the evening and dead in the morning. Appeared had a piece of substrate stuck deep in a throat.
Anyway, please let me know if you decided you have too many of them - I'm very interested in a pair or trio.

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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

giraffee said:


> Interesting.. I had similar situation with young ram in a community tank with eco complete substrate - the same locked open mouth in the evening and dead in the morning. Appeared had a piece of substrate stuck deep in a throat.
> Anyway, please let me know if you decided you have too many of them - I'm very interested in a pair or trio.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk


Hmm. I never thought of that. I suppose it's unlikely with sand, but then it could have been a small piece of wood for instance. In any case, yes I'm sure I'll sell them at some point (unless I manage to screw it up and kill them all). I'd like to wait until they are sexable so that people know what they are getting. Hopefully before too long.

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## giraffee (Mar 28, 2011)

crazy72 said:


> Hmm. I never thought of that. I suppose it's unlikely with sand, but then it could have been a small piece of wood for instance. In any case, yes I'm sure I'll sell them at some point (unless I manage to screw it up and kill them all). I'd like to wait until they are sexable so that people know what they are getting. Hopefully before too long.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Please put me on your list 

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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

The little guys are now in their permanent home (until they are sold - I can't keep them all). It's a 33 long with sand and lots of plants and wood for hide-outs. I did lose a few over the last couple of months, but there are still at least 35 of them. I'm expecting them to grow faster now in the bigger tank. The biggest ones (likely makes) are starting to show a bit of colour on the tail. They're going to be gorgeous!

As you can see in the second pic, the problem I have to photograph them is that they are so curious that they all face me when I come close enough with the camera!



















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## Ebonbolt (Aug 12, 2011)

Any updates on the fry? =P


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

The fry are doing well. Thanks for asking. I don't think I lost more than a couple of them when I moved them to the 33 Long. They are harder to count now with all the wood and vegetation there, but when they all come out at feeding time, there seems to be still about 30 of them. Growing, but slowly. I don't know if I don't feed them enough (I've gone to twice a day now to try to accelerate the growth) or if it's just a slow growing species. I raised apistos before (different species) and they were slow growers too, but they eventually made it to full size. So there's hope.

One potential issue tis that there's only very few of them (2 or 3 max) that are clearly maturing as males. I wonder if it's a dominance thing. Having them all in the same tank with limited floor space, it doesn't leave enough territory for many of them to establish dominance. That's something that I noticed before with apistos. If you have a bunch of them in a tank and you remove the dominant male, it's very often that another one soon starts colouring up and growing faster, becoming the new dominant male. It's not a huge problem in itself, but it limits my ability to sex them because until they breed, I don't know if the relatively smaller ones are females or just subdominant males. So I'm not sure what to do about that. It could be that I decide to start selling them in groups at some point without being able to sex them. We'll see. Ideally I would split them into several smaller tanks but I've been downsizing and I'm not going back to MTS.


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## kivyee (Oct 15, 2016)

If you start selling them let me know! I think you are right - the subdominant males will stay muted until they are separated from the dominant male.


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## Ebonbolt (Aug 12, 2011)

I've definitely read about sleeper males in Apistogramma being a thing. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if that's what is happening.


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## IJustHakunaMatata (Oct 3, 2020)

I also would like to know when you start selling the fry, I am a sucker for beautiful dwarf cichlids . Love my rams and just got some cockatoos . Still have plenty of tanks to fill out ❤


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Quick update. I have started feeding them twice a day to try to speed up growth. A few have benefitted, but many more don't appear to be growing much. I suspect they need more space and/or less competition for this to happen. So I will start selling them at their current size (about half an inch on average), for a lower price than what is customary for fully grown adults. I am thinking $20 per fish. PM me if interested.


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Just to clarify: they are too young to be sexed. The usual advice if you want to try and breed them is to get a group of 5 or so. Then you're almost guaranteed to have both sexes.


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

Okay they gave grown some more and I want to shut down their tank, so I am ready to sell them all. I am thinking in groups of 5 fish or so, with an assortment of size to increase the likelihood of getting both males and females. The bigger ones, likely males, are about one inch. The smaller ones about half an inch. I am thinking $100 per group of 5. Please let me know if you're interested.


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## crazy72 (Apr 22, 2010)

I still have about 30 and I want to shut down the tank, so I'll open an ad in the classifieds. Same deal as in the above post but now $60 per group of 6. All proceeds will go to Virunga National Park | Support Our Conservation Efforts for the protection of mountain gorillas.


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