by Kathy Knudsen Olson
January 1997

photos by Erik Olson

It all started with Kurt Zadnik’s talk in Portland, Oregon. First I was dazzled with the many species of dwarf cichlids, but I loved when he spoke of the little stray uninteresting fish (or contaminants in a shipment of different fish). Cowering in the back of a tank, these fish can be bought for $1 and might grow into a beautiful adult. To me this was just like treasure hunting.

Having fallen in love with Apistogramma species, I decided to pick up some of these contaminants. For some reason I really like the macmasteri and regani groups. (Note there are nine groups that Apistogramma is broken down into, by learning the traits of the groups one can more specifically pick out stray fish. Next month’s article will detail this topic.) While these fish are not as flashy as some of the species, these became the object of my search. Within a few jaunts to the fish store I discovered some strays. I bought one orphan for $2 (inflation since Kurt’s days). Some came in as contaminants with Nannacara, others the store keeper just picked out of a bin at the wholesaler. Ideally, it would be great to get several fish from the same shipment so the likelihood of getting the same species would be greater. If the store owner is really interested, he may also tell you the locale (i.e., where in South America) from which he received the shipment. All would help with correctly identifying the fish.

Apistogramma strays after purchase. The male is on the right, I think

The male, starting to take on more male qualities...

The little fish with the bold behavior started devolping the finnage of a male and has grown beautifully. Now he has quite spectacular colors. In spawning coloration the male completely losses his faint zig zag lateral line, and his body is always a shiny blue with blue flecks, and yellow over his head and upper body portions. He has bright blue spots on his operculum back to his anal fin. At times his entire operculum is bright blue with a remnant of a black cheek band. There is a faint caudal spot and at times remnants of transversal bars can be see at the edge of the dorsal fins. He has long yellow tipped ventral fins, a high black edged dorsal fin (also appears to be developing an extension, that may be black rimmed as well). There is also a black edge to his anal fin with yellow coloration and blue spots as well. All of his fins are yellow with the more intense yellow tipped ventral fins. When spawning the females are bright yellow orange with 3-5 black spots where the lateral line is broken up, and there are blue flecks on the operculum extending through the body of the fish. There is a black cheek band, yellow with blue flecks on the anal fin, which also appears to be black edged. The first 2-3 rays of the dorsal fin are black, and the dorsal fin is black edged as well. There is also a black spot at the base of the pectoral fin found both in the males and females.

adult female

When not spawning, the females are a grey green, or very dull greenish yellow with a zig zag lateral band ending in a triangular shaped caudal spot. The blue coloration can still be spotted, most notable on the cheeks and anal fin.

The first set of fry is now large enough to see patterns, and the largest male looks like his father, with a black edged anal fin with blue spots and yellow tipped ventral fins, and a blue operculum. The others have nice blue coloration on their cheeks, but are too small to tell much else.

After the first female died, we raised the fry with the father (the two combined original spawns had 100 or so fry, which dwindled down after awhile). When they were older we needed the tank space and added the other two. They seemed to get along fine, but for ideal spawning conditions a larger tank is needed (a 20 gallon long is often recommended as ideal). With the females (yes, the last fish did turn out to be a female as well) in there they soon spawned again, both females within a day of each other. The larger female took the fry from the new gal (do unto others?). With numerous juveniles swimming around though, the fry soon disappeared. We have now pulled the juveniles, so the parents can spawn with success.

So what are these fish? We nicknamed them Apistogramma macmysterii, because we knew they were from the macmasteri or closely related regani groups. As they have grown and colored up so beautifully some choices have dropped from the panel. The most likely choices are rotpunkt but they lack the red spots, and head structure of this species. A. sp Shwarzsaum, I think, this is most likely. This species is also known as the black fringe apisto, and is closely related to rotpunkt. Both of these species are Bridging species between the macmasteri and regani groups as well. The other choices A. eunotus...not as likely; they don’t have the characteric ending of the lateral line before the caudal spot. We put the pictures on the web for identification by the Apistogramma e-mail list and one person thought they were a new species discovered by Hans J. Mayland called Apistogramma sp. Sao Gabriel. I will send some photos off to the experts in the field and see what they have to say. When we find out I am sure we will have some semi adult fry for anyone wanting to try their hand at Apisto’s. Until then, they will be called A. macmysteri. It has been great fun playing with these lone strays that have come through the fish store, perhaps next I will try those agassizii group mystery fish, afraid this will have to wait for more tank space though!

References:

• Linke and Staek, Dwarf Cichlids, Tetra Press.
• Aqualog, South American Cichlids II.

Epilogue from the editor: Mike Wise identified our fish as A. sp. "Puerto Narino", which are nearly identical to "Rotpunkt" and "Schwarzum".