Tefe Biotope

[illumnae]

I'm setting up a Tefe biotope for 5 Green discus that I intend to get. Currently, the tankmates are a pair of Apistogramma agassizii "Tefe" and a pair of Apistogramma bitaeniata "Tefe". I also intend to get a small school of Corydoras arcuatus and a single L183 ancistrus.

Can anyone suggest any other tankmates that would be suitable and geographically accurate? In particular, I'm looking for a colourful schooling tetra found in Rio Tefe that can act as dithers

[dpt8]

How large is your tank ?? I would not mess with too many fish. You'll want your wild greens to settle in and eat well without very much disturbance.. I would go for the cories and pleco, and leave it at that .. Also, wilds need a larger tank than domestics due to their wild background JMO

[illumnae]

It's an 85 gallon with an external overflow sump, which increases the effective volume. I have a source of greens that are already acclimitized, and intend to get 5 pieces for this tank with tankmates. In another thread, Heiko mentioned 10-12 gallons/wild discus, so my tank should be fine for 5 discus with tankmates :)

It seems that Rio Tefe biotopes are rather rare! I can't even google information about it

[Apistomaster]

The Greens live in conditions very similar to those of Heckels with the main difference being that the pH is not quite as low. A pH of 5 to 6 will be adequate. The furnishings should be similar as those preferred by Heckels.

[illumnae]

Thanks Larry, I got fine sand and am in the midst of obtaining some floating wood. Already got some floating plants (amazon frogbits too)

[illumnae]

Here's a short vid of my greens in their biotope tank. They're not very good quality. I'll try to get pictures in soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zDV7VpGYYI

[Dan S]

Hello Illumnae,

Your tank looks fantastic, so clean.

Dan

[plecocicho]

Nice tank, but it seems, theres not enough ground for corydoras..:p. Is this tank cube type? What is its filtration and wc regime. Which species of hachet tetras and corydoras are in there?

[kirkp]

I'd take your discus any day! Nice setup.

Kirk

[illumnae]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments :)

plecocicho, this tank is a 3x1.5x2ft with a 2.5x1.25ft external overflow sump. As the sump is huge, there's loads of filter media (over 25 lbs worth of high quality sintered glass biomedia - brands are Biohome and Bacteria House) wc regime hasn't been strictly established yet, but likely to be weekly.

There are only 7 elegans cories in the tank, so i think floor space should be sufficient?

[FLGirl1977]

Very nice! Are those hatchet fish you have in there? I love those guys! I have a group of six myself. Watch out when doing water changes though.... they LOVE to jump! I found one yesterday flopping around on the floor as I was putting the lid back on.. lol. Have no idea how long he was flopping around. I picked him back up and put him in. He was a bit stunned, but he's just fine...pretty resilient little guys! lol! :p

[TankWatcher]

Really nice. Your WC Greens remind me a lot of my one new WC Greens. I love your driftwood - wish I could find pieces like that. How do you attach that piece coming down from the top?

[illumnae]

Really nice. Your WC Greens remind me a lot of my one new WC Greens. I love your driftwood - wish I could find pieces like that. How do you attach that piece coming down from the top?

perhaps ours came from the same source? I'm in Singapore, not too far away from australia. These types of wood are very common here in Singapore, they're actually not the preferred type of driftwood to use as they float for ages. However, mine are starting to sink. I've figured a way to fix them to the top though, I'll post pictures soon :)

[TankWatcher]

I've figured a way to fix them to the top though, I'll post pictures soon Do tell, would love to know how

[RichardLongley]

I'm setting up a Tefe biotope for 5 Green discus that I intend to get. Currently, the tankmates are a pair of Apistogramma agassizii "Tefe" and a pair of Apistogramma bitaeniata "Tefe". I also intend to get a small school of Corydoras arcuatus and a single L183 ancistrus.

Can anyone suggest any other tankmates that would be suitable and geographically accurate? In particular, I'm looking for a colourful schooling tetra found in Rio Tefe that can act as dithers


sounds great.

I have a question, why are you choosing 2 species of apistogramma? Agasizzi Tefe are among my most favourite apisto, and for that and a few other reasons I would go with just the Agasizzi. How big is the tank? I am hopeing to use Agasizzi Tefe in my Discus tank, if I can afford them, and I would go with around 10, but it is a tank with a large footprint.

[illumnae]

My favourite apistogramma are Ap. bitaeniata actually, and in particular I like the orange colour morphs. When I was on my honeymoon in Hong Kong, I came across an Ap. bitaeniata "Tefe" that I fell in love with and I just HAD to get, so I got it. In the same shop, there were other spectacular apistogramma and I saw a stunning Ap. agassizii "Tefe" as well. As my intention was always to set up a discus biotope tank with apistogramma, I decided on these 2 pairs of apistogramma as they shared the same locality. Of course, that meant I had to change my plans from a Rio Negro biotope heckel tank to a Rio Tefe biotope green discus tank, but I think all in all it panned out well and I really love my tank!

[TankWatcher]

I once had a pair of Ap. bitaeniata said to be "Tefe", but not sure if the local was really accurate. Still, really nice fish. Unfortunately, the male died of worms shortly after mating. The female died of the same during guarding & none of the fry survived.

I have a nice pair of a.cacs & plan on getting some other apisoto pairs as tank mates for my wild tanks. Apistos are my 2nd favourite fish.

Still looking forward to future hints re your floating wood. Looks great :)

[illumnae]

I haven't had the time to go and do it yet. The wood is currently floating as it hasn't fully absorbed water yet. Hope I can describe the method in words. Basically, as I'm keeping hatchetfish, I have glass covers on my tank. The glass covers come with 2 round holes to make removing the covers easy. What I intend to do is to tie the wood with fishing line, tie the other end of the fishing line to sawn off chopsticks, then stick the chopsticks through the holes vertically before turning them horizontal so they don't fall back through the holes. the fishing line can be wound up or down on the chopsticks so that the wood can be positioned up or down based on your liking.

[RichardLongley]

ok, so next quesion,

why not keep only Bitaeniata.

I would recommend keeping only 1 type of apisto ideally. If your tank is large, then you could achieve a complex relationship of dominant males and dominant females, and maybe even see sneaker males!!!

If you use 2 species of Apisto, maybe 1 will be dominant, I dont have experience of working with Bitaeniata, but I could ask others and find out how they think Agasizzi and Bitaeniata together would work.

[illumnae]

shrug, i like to see both in my tank, and both pairs are doing fine. I had the option of getting 2 pairs of Ap. bitaeniata "Tefe" too, but I decided against it.

Besides, it's more likely with 2 pairs from the same complex that a mal will get harassed to death as opposed to 2 pairs of different complex with different body shapes.

[RichardLongley]

Indeed

I hadnt appreciated you already had them in the tank. Out of interest how is it working, which species would you say is most aggresive?

[Apistomaster]

Alas, the only pair of Apistogramma agassiziTefe' parallel lines is only now a solitary female. I had put them out to pasture in my wild Nhamunda Blue Discus.
Never could spawn them.

[illumnae]

they're working out well :) the males can swim by each other without attacking each other. aggressiveness wise, based on my experience, it is dependant on the character of each individual fish...some are really timid while others can be really fierce, and all of the same species. It's one reason why I love apistogramma so much...loads of character packed into one small body

[RichardLongley]

Excellent.

Do you have any pics?

[Eyecandy]

Illumnae.. Love the video... absolutely beautiful fish.. I too was wondering about the "floating" piece of wood. I have a 120 gallon used to be discus and now is geo tank ( after I move will probably be discus again but the geos are really cute) that's got lots of branchy and root like manzanita driftwood and was trying to figure how to get a piece to stay "floating" on the top. might see if I can get you chopstick idea to work. Even tho I don't have holes in the glass I do have areas in the back of the lids that are plastic and I can make holes there.. Thanks for the idea and good luck with your tank.. Sue:D

[illumnae]

A brief update. I let the wood sink and built a structure rising from the ground to near the top of the tank instead. Makes it look like a root tangle from a tree, and so far the discus seem to be loving it.

From my video, can anyone confirm that all my fish are greens? I got a bit worried from the "Strain of Tefes" thread where Heiko told someone his fish are actually all blues and not greens!

[Richy44]

I got a bit worried from the "Strain of Tefes" thread where Heiko told someone his fish are actually all blues and not greens!

Still bummed about that.. Sorry for getting off topic,I had to comment.

Rick.

[TankWatcher]

They look just like mine, which are greens. They were sold to me by LFS, who said they were blues. I always thought they were greens, so posted here about new wild Blues. Not only did other forum members tell me they were greens, but so did Heiko. Said they were probably from Tefe.

Looking forward to a picture of your new tank (with the new driftwood setup)

[illumnae]

Sorry rick :( I got a little worried cuz I thought one or 2 of mine might look like yours

[plecocicho]

Clear red spots, especially on anal fin are species specific for green discus.

[Richy44]

Hey no problem illumnae. It will pass. :)

[illumnae]

Clear red spots, especially on anal fin are species specific for green discus.

But even in Heiko's book, I see some with red lines on the anal fin. There's one particular one I'm worried about. He looks like he has alot of faint red peppering across his body, and there's 1 red spot on his anal fin, but the rest are lines. He came in with the rest of the greens though. Most of them except that one i'm sure are greens due to red spost on the anal fin

[Apistomaster]

I found I could hold down pretty large pieces of wood by a strategic placement of a couple 1/4" diameter wood dowels cut ever so slightly longer than the inside width of my tank. Then the dowels may be wedged in the correct place rather firmly and voila! the wood staid where I wanted it. It has taken a few months but my wood is finally water logged enough I could remove one of the dowels and I think I could take the remaining piece out, just haven't tried yet. It has proved to be a fairly inconspicuous method for holding wood down so some of you may want give it a try. It is certainly a very cheap method of resolving a recurring problem.

Only 2 dowels held a 4 ft piece of wood which was interlocked with a base root section 2-1/2 ft long in my 72" long 125 gal. You can apply considerable compression on the dowels, enough so they are sprung exerting a constant firm pressure holding them in place.
Eventually the wood will be thoroughly water logged and the dowels will no longer be necessary. It really can open up more aquascaping options with larger pieces of wood.

[TankWatcher]

I also have clear lines on some anal fins - Heiko identified them as wild greens.

[plecocicho]

Sometimes spots are so near each other that they blurr into lines. If your wild discus has just one red spot , then he is definetelly green discus. Also in most cases wild greens have blue gren striation and colour of the anal fin.

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

just as my name is mentioned again, Plecocicho has done his homework, very well observed. Good boy.

In addition remember: the Green Discus (S. aequifasciatus) may even have stripes into the anal fins BUT NEVER as pronounced as in Blues or Browns. And has Pelcocicho said correctly they are (if present) a "blurr into lines". And they must have at least some red spots - and even one...

So much for greens.

All the very best
always

Heiko
www.aquapress-bleher.com

PS Have alook at some of the greens from the last August Upper Jutai expedition on my site

[Apistomaster]

Even if some greens appear to have anal fin red striations if you have both Greens, S. aequifasciata and Blue/Browns, S. haraldi, side by side, their can be no confusion as to which are what.

[illumnae]

Ok, I went to scrutinize my suspected one and I found 1-2 clear spots that stand out from the "fading into lines" red line. The rest of his lines seem somewhat solid, but i guess not as solid as some blues I've seen. I also found some faint but distinct spots forming on one side of his body. I guess he's a green like the rest...phew!