# Dwarf growth in A. cacatuoides?



## Corine (May 17, 2008)

About a year and a half ago or so (don't pin me down on the exact time), my A. cacatuoides spawned about 40 offspring. Most of these survived and I sold them. George and Mildred met their demise soon after; swim bladder disease (I later realised that all the fish I got from 1 particular shop would die within months of swim bladder disease. I'm not shopping there anymore!).

A month or so later I realised that a male and female of the spawn had managed to hide in my big tank. They stayed quite small for cichlids, but managed to spawn one troop of wrigglies before I separated and sold them too.

The wrigglies were quickly out, not many of them survived. We're now about summer of last year, and the last of the cichild wrigglies were sold during that summer.

Imagine my surprise when we're a few months down the road and I find cichlid fry. Three in all. Since the last ones in that tank were George and Mildred's grand-offspring, they must have been the fry that were born last summer. Six months or so after being spawned, they were still the size of about 8 week old cichlid fry.

We're now another six months down the road. The "fry", now at least a year old, are still the size and colour of 8 week old fry. They've never grown. They never got their adult colours.

They're simply swimming around my big tank like they will be fry forever.

Is anything known about this kind of thing? I must say I'm both chuffed and utterly surprised!


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## apistomaster (Jun 22, 2006)

The "sneaker fry" must have had a tough time getting enough good food to have grown so little.
I raised 174 A. cacatuoides last summer from a single spawn and here is what they looked like at 5 months, fullly developed large breeders.









The modern strains of Apistogramma cacatuoides are rapid growing but generally shorter lived than most other Apistogramma spp. They have become almost like rams where 2-1/2 years is pretty good mieage.

They are quite sensitive to high nitrates and often bloat up and die almost overnight with little or no earlier indications of anything being wrong. All Apistograma are subject to this problem to a degree but the more highly bred A. cacatuoides is among the worst in this respect.

It may still be possible for you to raise these surviving fry and spawn them before they die to replace them with larger stronger breeding stock. Try feeding the with daily feedings of live baby brine shrimp and frozen blood worms to help them grow better.


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## Corine (May 17, 2008)

The funny thing is that when they were freshly spawned, I fed all of them with liquifry. I thought I had moved all of the fry to the smaller tank to be able to look after them better when the adults had all died, but these three have been in the tank since then.

When I discovered them in January, I did start feeding them microfoods, but noticed that they hang around in the moss and eat there. They certainly have no problems getting food that floats down out of it and they seem to know what feeding time is. They have been more present since then. I have a lot of moss growing in the tank, as well as loads of nooks and crannies for them:










The only difference in the last few months is really that they've stopped hiding.


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## apistomaster (Jun 22, 2006)

The fry food isn't really very good for growth and the fact the youngsters are hunting through the moss is proof of their need for some live bbs added to their diet. There aren't enough small bugs in the moss to make them grow but it how they managed to survive.
The way Apistogramma dive to the bottom and hide, especially if you have a gravel substrate rather than sand is not at all unusual. Even with sand it's quite easy to miss a few while removing the majority because they know how to hide really good.


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## Corine (May 17, 2008)

Off to get some live stuff for them then! I wonder if they'll grow to their natural size still. 

Thanks!


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## Hubbynz (May 10, 2008)

Great looking cacas.

Caca fry can be very smart and illusive. Of my recent spawns I spent a couple of hours catching all the fry I could see which were around a month old......up to a month later I was still finding random fry in the tank from the spawn.....they can be very tricky to catch.

I have also noticed some grow alot slower than others.


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## Corine (May 17, 2008)

Hm. They're not taking live food. They prefer the debris of the flakes and the dried stuff I feed the others. That's what they pick out of the moss when they feed.

Do they take some time to get used to it?


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## Fishguy28 (Feb 5, 2007)

What live food are you using? The may need to get used to it, but it is unusual that they didn't take to it right away. It goes against natural feeding instinct. Could they be eating it when it gets into the moss where you can't see them feed?


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## Corine (May 17, 2008)

I got some daphnia and a bb culture to grow them fresh food.

I put the daphnia in front of their faces with a pipette but they never even looked at it. They were over the gravel when I fed them. They just went back to the moss to pick at sunken flakes.

Because it's so warm the bbs hatched quite quickly, so I tried those, but they won't look at them either.

I'm now just dropping daphnia and bbs into the moss where they always feed, maybe they'll pick them up that way.


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## Fishguy28 (Feb 5, 2007)

Wow, I can't put either of those foods into my tank without the fish going nuts!
You definitely have some odd fish in your tank. Have you tried a garlic additive or anything to try to get them to eat it?


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## Corine (May 17, 2008)

Right, I've done some experimenting over the last few weeks and now I have:

1 adult size fish
2 halway fry - adult size fish
1 teenytiny fry size fish

I have no idea what made the bigger ones finally start to grow (they're over a year old now), but I did spend 2 weeks overfeeding. Overfeeding to the extent that there was no way anyone could finish it all (had to do a lot of water changes as well to keep the place liveable). I also tried just about every different kind of food out there.

So what finally made the bigger ones decide to grow? No idea.


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