my wild caught flamengo

[sharn]

hello guys, last friday i made a trip with a few buddies up to a persons house who imports alot of amazonian fish along with others. he recently got a large shipment in of apistogramma which were wild caught, sent to holland and then here. the only fish out of around 20 species that caught my eye was his tank full of male flamengo as most of the others had very little colour (still young but im not that flash on apistos and didnt know what they would grow up to look like). anyway, i bought 2 males as he didnt have females and theyre real pretty fish, ive only had them a few days but theyre already acting like theyve been in the tank for months, swimming around out in the open and taking residence in their seperate caves at each end, bar eating which will hopefully happen soon enough, theyve been accepting flake at the importers so hopefully they will do the same for me with bloodworms, live mozzie larvae, flake and jbl bits and maybe micro worms if they catch on. for 15 each i thought it was a nice price too 8-)

anyway, they are in my 220L discus tank. ph of 6.5, kh3, gh3, ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrate not sure but im getting that test kit soon but it should be quite low as i did a nice big 50% water change before they went in and do 30% every 2-3 days. im just wondering if theres anything special i need to know about these pretty dudes cause doing searches on google i came up with nothing, are these actually flamengo or did he make it up? heres a pic of what they look like- LINK (http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wiljo.nu/images/fiskar/apistogramma_agassizi.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wiljo.nu/images/fisksida/apistogramma_agassizi.htm&h=286&w=400&sz=40&tbnid=yWhoL3I2HA7MfM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=120&hl=en&start=6&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dapistogramma%2Bagassizi%26svnum%3D10% 26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG).
They look pretty much exactly the same. any links to food sites would be appreciated.

thanks guys :)

[Noddy65]

What state is this person in?
Would love to see the available fish.
Mike

[Th0mas]

NZ??

The link above is pointing to a NZ site.

Thomas.

[sharn]

yes im in new zealand, the google did a world wide search. i will have to try and get decent pics of them as now they have settled in a bit they have a single spot on each side half way along their bodies. the bodies are less shiny (were pretty shiny when they were back in the importers tank) but their dorsal fins are just as long, same colour and their tails are pretty much indentical. faces look very similar with alot of blue *off to try and get pictures now*

[steph]

Hi Sharn

If they are the same as the fish in the link - they are Apistogramma agassizi, probably "santarem" locale. I have never heard of "flamengo" in relation to Apistos, so no idea what this is referring to.

A. agassizi is mostly an easy fish to keep and come in a fairly wide variety of colours so some variation is to be expected. The main feature of the males is the lanceolate (very pointy, spade like) tail. Females are mostly yellow and their tails are rounder.

If you got these for $15 NZD you got an absolute BARGAIN!!

Live mozzie larvae is a good food to tempt fussy eaters but they should soon pick up on other foods like microbits, especially if something else in the tank are eating it as well. Go a bit easy on the bloodworms - not recommended as a real staple food by some people, and some species of Apistogramma cant handle them very well.

Cheers

Steph

[kevkoi]

The Santarem, have that yellow/orange blotch on the top of the head with irridescent scales and a black/white pattern tail. These are from Rio Satarem, BRAZIL.

There is also a cultivated form called A.agassizi "White tail" which there is no collection location attached to it. Can look rather similar to pictured fish.

Apistogramma "Flamengo" is a trade name by the Peruvian exporters for their variety of A.agassizi from PERU, which also has a white tail but not as irridescent as the Santarem population.

[sharn]

it would probably be the ones from peru, thats where all of his imported ones come from at the moment. good to know what it actually is hehe!

last night i saw them last night take a few picks at the discus bits and flake so im happy theyre settling in well, i thought because they were wild caught they would only accept live foods which i dont have much of, only the mozzie larvae and microworms which noone seems to spot except my rummies. trying to get my hands on daphnia as i would like to feed it to my other fish also but its darn hard to get for some wierd reason :(

and yes, i was most impressed with 15 each, it was origianally 50 a pair but he had no females, not sure what happened to them sadly so he was just doing a 'you get what i can catch for 15 each'