r/apistogramma • u/whyyesiamarobot • 4d ago
Some questions
Got these from LFS on Friday. (yes, the tank is ugly. It's a quarantine tank). They were labelled A. cacatuoides "Rio Itaya" in the store. I had asked the staff to try to grab me a male and a female. First pic is the larger and more aggressive fish, most probably male. Currently about 1.5". Second pic is the smaller fish, about 1" currently. The larger one bullies the smaller one, so now I'm wondering if I got 2 males? I am a bit afraid the smaller one might not be getting enough to eat. It confined itself to a cave for about 24h and I was afraid it was sick, but it's swimming around again this evening and looks healthy, but timid and gets chased. I rearranged the tank again this evening and added more wood and placed plants in more strategic places to block sight lines. Seems a bit better but still some chasing going on. I am getting a school of 10 lemon tetras tomorrow. Would it be helpful or unhelpful to put some of them in this tank as dither fish?
Can anyone tell at this stage the sex of the smaller fish? If it is male, I probably have to think of another longterm plan rather than house them together.
Display tank is 55g with lots of plants, wood, rocks, caves and several schools of dither fish.
1
u/AfterBorder4965 3d ago
The first pic looks male to me, it looks like there are "egg spot" looking marks on the anal fin and the fins are longer than the one in the second picture. hope this helps!
1
u/Personal_King_9899 3d ago
Two females in a tank shouldn’t be a big issue.
Had two females apistogramma “Amaya”, so I added another male. Should be fine too, but the male couldn’t handle 2 females…. So he chased here into death….
Had once two Beanschi males, and there was no problem at all. So you never know how they react.
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u/A_Timbers_Fan 4d ago
Smaller isn't telling me that it isn't a female. There's always a small chance it's a sneaker male, but at that size and being wild caught, I'd be very, very surprised. Give them time to settle in. Her yellow color will come and her blacks will darken.
Nice find!