# Dwarf cichlid photos.



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Ok guys'n'gals,

Just a couple of photos of a couple of my tanks and fish.

*Apsitogramma masken.*
Tank









Male









Female









*Apistogramma sp. "Galaxy".* (Unidentified apisto from the Cruzi subcomplex)
Tank









Male









Female


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

And a preview of a recent purchase. Nannacara anomala. I bought a a pair this week, but they are still settling in to their new tank, so do not have a tank shot, etc yet. But I do have a photo of them at the LFS.


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Great looking fish Peter! Any luck breeding them?


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Hi Ed,

I have fry growing out from the two apsito species, as well as cacatuoide orange flame fry, and agassizii fry. I've just picked up the anomala, so no breeding yet. I'm also picking up some other stuff this week, but they're a surprise for a few weeks/months down the track.


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## Isis24 (Dec 10, 2008)

Thank you for posting these! I love it! Those Nannacara are gorgeous. Wait a minute....is that a loach in there? Oh... never mind, that was the LFS. I knew that couldn't be possible :wink:

Call me ignorant but they remind me of Laetacara dorsigera. Am I hallucinating the pink belly?

BTW, do you still have any Laetacara?


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## ebjdftw (Aug 24, 2010)

do you have any pictures of you orange flame? I'd love to see those! I picked up some and dwarf cichlids are rapidly growing on me


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## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

I've been looking for female nannacara anomola everywhere...lucky duck! :drooling:


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## Chromedome52 (Jul 25, 2009)

That's not _Nannacara anomala_, it's _aureocephalus_. Much less common and more interesting. The two are very close in color, some slight differences in pattern. Hard to explain, but I know it when I see it.


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## Kerricko (May 26, 2010)

Nice pics, thanks for sharing. Just ventured into the dwarf cichlids and am interested in them. Any recommendations for species to look into?


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

ebjdftw said:


> do you have any pictures of you orange flame? I'd love to see those! I picked up some and dwarf cichlids are rapidly growing on me


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Isis24 said:


> Thank you for posting these! I love it! Those Nannacara are gorgeous. Wait a minute....is that a loach in there? Oh... never mind, that was the LFS. I knew that couldn't be possible :wink:
> 
> Call me ignorant but they remind me of Laetacara dorsigera. Am I hallucinating the pink belly?
> 
> BTW, do you still have any Laetacara?


Hahaha yes, you are hallucinating a pink belly. They're not that similar to Laetacara, but I am new to Nannacara. No, I don't have any laetacara at the moment. However I have my LFS on the look out for some L. dorsigera "Argentina".


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Kerricko said:


> Nice pics, thanks for sharing. Just ventured into the dwarf cichlids and am interested in them. Any recommendations for species to look into?


I believe Laetacara are great beginner dwarf cichlids. When it comes to apistogramma, line bred Cacatuoides are a good beginner, and I also believe apistos from the Regani complex, especially those in the Eunotus and Cruzi sub-complexes are good beginner apistos.

Other good beginner dwarf cichlids come from West Africa, such as red forest jewels, thomasii and fish from the Pelvicachromis genus.

One important thing to note. Your water is important. It must be low PH with low dissolved mineral content. Many dwarf cichlid species do not do well in moderate to hard alkaline water.

Rain water that has been filtered through activated carbon is very good for helping to drop the PH of tap water. Ketapang leaves and/or Canadian sphagnum moss is used to acidify the water.


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Ok, here's a sneak peak at this weeks pickup. I know they are Westies and not SA's, but they are still very nice.

Pelvicachromis taeniatus "dehane".


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## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

Beautiful! Hey DeadFisfFloating. When you have fry from the Nannacara Anomala give me a shout I need females. I have a tank of males and need a bunch of females. The westies are beautiful...would love to have some of those. When you have fry give me a shout. I LOVE dwarf cichlids!


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## Fevz (Nov 18, 2009)

Gorgeous dwarf cichlids!
*DeadFishFloating*
, since you are a dwarf cichlid expert. Is it possible to have a pair of any dwarf cichlids in a 9 gal. tank?


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Bruce Haynes said:


> Beautiful! Hey DeadFisfFloating. When you have fry from the Nannacara Anomala give me a shout I need females. I have a tank of males and need a bunch of females. The westies are beautiful...would love to have some of those. When you have fry give me a shout. I LOVE dwarf cichlids!


Hey Bruce, you aware I hope that I'm half a world away mate. :thumb:


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Fevz said:


> Gorgeous dwarf cichlids!
> *DeadFishFloating*
> , since you are a dwarf cichlid expert. Is it possible to have a pair of any dwarf cichlids in a 9 gal. tank?


I'm hardly an expert, more like an enthusiast.  As for a 9 gallon tank, it depends on which dwarf species you have in mind, the dimensions of the tank, how you aquascape the tank, is breeding and raising fry in the picture, and a range of other factors.

My tanks are all 20 Gallan High tanks, though I only fill to the about 11/12 inch mark. I have found some of the wild apisto and betta species are good jumpers.

I have seen 1 foot cube tanks used successfully for smaller species, but these were well scaped and had floating pipes in them. The pipes offer sanctuary for harrassed fish.


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

What happened to cac's looking like thugs *DFF*??? Traitor!!! :lol:

Nice to see you giving westies a try too. Overlooked they are. Now just need to get you into Badis and bettas.


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Oh, some of the Cacas still look like back alley thugs, but those guys were a little different.

Now as for Bettas, I have a couple of pairs.

My male mahachai









My male imbellis









My male smaragdina


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Great pose on the mahachai. Almost a perfect pic if not for the reflection. Any mouthbrooders yet, are just tipping the toe in with the bubblenesters?

I always found wild bettas to be good tankmates with dwarf cichlids. They together with your apistos or are you doing bio-themed tanks still?


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Just sticking with splendens complex bettas for the moment. I pick up a pair of wild splendens this week as well.

The local "cichlid keepers" (read the guys who keep large SA and CA cichlids) call dwarf SA cichlids, Westies and Bettas, swamp guppies. So a few of us have a adopted the term and call ourselves swamp guppy keepers.

All my tanks are 2 footers, so I'm not comfortable mixing Bettas with dwarf cichlids. I also have limited tanks, so once I breed something I often move it on, and try the next dwarf that catches my eye.

It helps that we have a LFS that specialises in dwarf cichlids and Bettas. 75% of the tanks in the store are devoted dwarf cichlids and Bettas.


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## adam79 (Jun 27, 2007)

dwarfpike said:


> What happened to cac's looking like thugs *DFF*??? Traitor!!! :lol:
> 
> Nice to see you giving westies a try too. Overlooked they are. Now just need to get you into Badis and bettas.


Must be a natural progression. Since I've been getting more into dwarf cichlids, I've found my self drawn to badis, dario, and betta.

BTW, DFF, have you kept A. viejita? I'm thinking about ordering some. Any thoughts on breeding?


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

adam79 said:


> BTW, DFF, have you kept A. viejita? I'm thinking about ordering some. Any thoughts on breeding?


I haven't kept A. viejita. It's very doubtfull true viejita are even in the hobby. It is very, very common for A. macmasteri to be sold as viejita. If you talk to to the experts on apistogramma.com you will get the same story.

As for keeping and breeding any apistos, it's very much the same story for any species. Find out what conditions they are found in, in the wild and try and replicate them. Or if they are line bred, try and find out what conditions they were bred at.

I use rain water filtered through carbon to drop the hardness of my local water. (It's easy when you have access to 2,500 gallons of rain water, otherwise look into an RO unit) I have a water storage barrell with bag of Canadian sphagnum moss and a bag of Eheim efhi torf in it to help acidify the water. And I add one ketapang leaf to each tank when I do the weekly water change.


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## Isis24 (Dec 10, 2008)

Didn't know you kept bettas! That first one is gorgeous!

adam79: I loooove darios too. I think they are the most beautiful nano fish I've seen.

Random comment, but today I picked up two sphaerichthys vaillanti. I am beyond excited. My Bolivians share their tank with a sparkling gourami, two licorice gouramis, and these two guys.  They seem to get along. Dwarfpike, didn't you say once that you love those guys? I'll have to take a few pics and post them in my own thread here.


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## Fevz (Nov 18, 2009)

Well just to remind you. I bought myself a bigger tank for dwarf cichlids it's 12.5 gallon and i've put some checkerboard cichlids in it


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Nice Bettas. :thumb:


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

DeadFishFloating said:


> Just sticking with splendens complex bettas for the moment. I pick up a pair of wild splendens this week as well.
> 
> It helps that we have a LFS that specialises in dwarf cichlids and Bettas. 75% of the tanks in the store are devoted dwarf cichlids and Bettas.


Just wait until you try your first mouth brooder. You'll deffinately get hooked. Soon you end up with the crown jewel of bettas, _B. macrostoma_.

And yeah, having a lfs that likes the small stuff is nice. Rare too. At least here.


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

adam79 said:


> Must be a natural progression. Since I've been getting more into dwarf cichlids, I've found my self drawn to badis, dario, and betta.


I think it is. Dwarf cichlid keepers generally plant their tanks, which often leads to planted biotope tanks ... which in SE Asian tanks often means badis and labrynth fish. Plus, at least around here, badis have often been refered to as 'asian apistos' in terms of attitude and behavior.


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Isis24 said:


> Random comment, but today I picked up two sphaerichthys vaillanti. I am beyond excited. My Bolivians share their tank with a sparkling gourami, two licorice gouramis, and these two guys.  They seem to get along. Dwarfpike, didn't you say once that you love those guys? I'll have to take a few pics and post them in my own thread here.


Deffinately post pics of them in general or photography!! 'cause yes, Vaillanti are my favorite of the various chocolate gouramis. Love sparklers too. Are the licorice common ones or did you get one of the rarer species? Ack, never mind, answer that in the photo thread so we aren't hijacking DFF's dwarf cichlid thread with labyrinth fish ((even if he was the one to post betta pics in here!!! :lol: ))


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## Fevz (Nov 18, 2009)

Here is a shoot of a young Dicrosus in my tank. The biggest male is to shy right now and won't show himself









This is the full tank shoot


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## clgkag (Mar 22, 2008)

Fevz, that tank is awesome!


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## Fevz (Nov 18, 2009)

Thanks  
Now i got to figure on how to bring ph to 5.0 and then have some juwies


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## NativePredator (Feb 28, 2011)

very cool lookin tank and fish, should get lots of babies


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## Fevz (Nov 18, 2009)

One of females is a bit braver than other checkerboards


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