25 gallon apisto community tank

[macdaddy36]

I finally set up my new 25 gallon mr. Aqua cube a couples days and the water has finally cleared enough that I can post some pictures. There are a lot of tannins still but they will go away overtime. 
 Equipment: 2x 12 inch aquaneats lights, fluval jager heater, sponge filter.

Planting: Amazon sword, wisteria, and windelov fern

Stocking: m/f Apistogramma panduro, 3x copella arnoldi splash tetra, 7x harlequin/espei rasbora.

Whole tank shot

View from my bed

Here are the vicious killers themselves. It could be my fault though since they have been much more well behaved since being in the bigger tank. I think the increased height lets them stay away from the other fish.

One of the copella. I could only get 3 of them but they are very cool. Not very pretty but definitely interesting behavior.

The male blue panda. He was more blue before I moved him because I think he is still settling in.

The harlequin rasbora are my oldest fish. I moved them in here since I though they had the best chance with the apistos.

Thanks for reading!

[Guppysnail]

The panduro are amazing. I love the sand hill. 

[macdaddy36]

On 4/8/2024 at 5:40 PM, Guppysnail said:

The panduro are amazing. I love the sand hill. 

I will let them know you love their scaping

[Guppysnail]

How do you hold the hills in place?  Mine flatten out fast every time I try. 

[macdaddy36]

It's only been a few days of being set up, but I originally set it up with it low at the front sloping up toward the back. That pile and crater you see in the 2nd picture was the Apistogramma doing their own aquascaping.

[macdaddy36]

Recently, the splash tetra have become aggressive between themselves and against the rasbora. The dominant male is the only one being agressive. I think the issue is that I have 2 males and only one female. The dominant male picks on the smaller male and the smaller male hides behind the heater all day.

My first question: how bad would it be to put the bullied male in another tank by itself (with other community species) at least temporarily?

I want to get more to get more of the splash tetra but I am not confident in what species they are. The store had them labeled as “Arnoldi Splash Tetra”, but they don’t look like what I have seen on google. The closest I have found is copella natteri and copella sp. barcelos. 

Can anyone tell me what these are?
If so, where can I get more?

Male:

Female:

Thanks!

[macdaddy36]

I asked the same ID question as above on another forum and I didn't get a conclusive answer but I did get an idea. This website: https://tomc.no has tons of information on Apistogramma, copellas, pencilfishes, tetras, and other dwarf cichlids. 

Based on this website I think it could be either C. meinkeni or  Copella callolepis (sensu Zarske)  nattereri (sensu Marinho).

Right now I am leaning towards Copella callolepis (sensu Zarske)  nattereri (sensu Marinho).:

The female looks like this one:

C. meinkeni

The website has C. meinkeni looking like the one above but google has it looking like the one below:

Finally mine:

Pardon the cloudy water, this was just after a water change. 

What do you think? Right now I am leaning towards Copella callolepis (sensu Zarske)  nattereri (sensu Marinho).:  

Thanks for reading!

 

Edited April 14 by macdaddy36

[macdaddy36]

On Sunday the polycarbonate finally arrived so I was able to finish the lid and canopy. Here is what the whole tank looks like now: 

I am pretty confident that these splash tetra are C. callolepis. Unfortunately, the fish don’t jump out of the water to spawn like C. arnoldi do, although they are still interesting. Here is the dominant male patrolling his territory: I have an empty 10 gallon so I might try to breed them because I only have 3. They aren’t a well documented species so it could be tricky though.

Here are the apistogramma:

I am pretty confident they are a pair. They rarely squabble anymore, they are always together, and they both mostly stay on the right side of the tank where there cave is (conveniently next to my bed so it is easy to watch them)

You might notice the water is filled with particles and there are lots of tannins. I am going to order an internal filter with some filter floss and also clean my old purigen to try to minimize this.

There are lots of diatoms too. I am going to chalk this up to it being a newish tank still and try to get through. I’m thinking of more fish for this tank, which will probably be hillstream loaches, or maybe black neon or blue emperor tetra.

Things I am still hoping to get: Salvinia and more manzanita wood to cover the surface for the splash tetra. I suck a growing floating plants. I have killed water lettuce and duckweed. I think its because they get killed by constantly being attacked by the filter lol.

Edited April 18 by macdaddy36

[macdaddy36]

I did a big water change today and I installed a new internal filter. Here is how the tank looks now:

I added an Anubias and sword from QT. The anubias at the top is a nice spot for the splash tetra to hang out.

The panduro are also still doing well