Ted’s Fishroom

Apistogramma hoignei (Meinken, 1965)

Once upon a time I kept a lot of different Apistogramma species.  My interest waned a bit when I started keeping a lot of west African fish, until someone pointed out that I own the apistogramma.com forum, and that I should probably have an apisto or two.  I was getting some west African fish from Ryan and Sam at www.TwoFishGuyz.com, and added a couple pairs of this species just to get my friend off my back.

The A. hoignei I have are very beautiful fish.  They are somewhat similar to A. hongsloi.  Ryan and Scott imported them from Europe as tank-strain Czech stock.  They arrived in great shape and at a breedable size.  I set them up in a 15 gallon planted tank, and it did not take long for them to start acting like normally, healthy apistos… meaning that the dominant male killed the smaller male within 24 hours.  Perfect!  Now I have two females and a male.

According to Romer’s book and the DATZ book (A numbers), A. hoignei is not supposed to present any problems when getting them to spawn oe raising the fry.  They are not particularly picky about water conditions, and being tank strains they are probably even more tolerant.  I keep them in soft water that is slightly acidic (10 - 25 ppm TDS, KH 1-2, pH 6.5) and warm (80F).  There are a few Nematobrycon palmeri, emporer tetras, for dithers and a Sycidium sp. goby for algea control (excellent algea eaters!).  I feed the tank twice each day with baby brine, and once every other day with a worm of some sort (grindal, white or black).  I do a 25% water change once each week with aged soft water.

The dominant female started laying eggs the second week after arriving in the fish room.  Since that time she has spawned at least a half dozen times, but so far the eggs have not hatched.  In fact, I have not seen the eggs after two days.  I do not know if they are infertile or if she is just eating them.  She is very protective of the cave, and the male is very attentive to the surrounding territory.  The female does a good job of keeping the male out of the cave when the eggs are in there, so I do not think that he is eating them.

The female recently changed spawning sites from a dome-shaped cave with  alarge opening (pictured above) to a smaller cave with a smaller opening.  The results were the same though.  The spawns have usually about 15 - 25 eggs, which are dark in coloration and glued to the top of the cave is a loose, patternless plaque.

These A. hoignei are the fifth out of six Czech-born species that I have gotten that proved difficult or impossible to spawn.  The only species I have been successful with is A. cacatuoides.  I will keep trying different thing to get this pair to be successful.  First up will be to try spawning them as a lone pair, without dithers or algae eaters present.  Maybe they are too distracted to be successful.