Dwarf Cichlid FAQ

“white” water rivers have a large amount on anorganic suspended matter, resulting in poor visibility and slightly hard, slightly alkaline water

“clear” water rivers which are clear carrying very little sediment, and have a high visibility and the

“black” water rivers, which whilst they are clear are tinted dark brown from the decaying plant matter that gets washed into the rivers every rainy season, these rivers are typically very soft and very acid

Water Conditions	White Water	Clear Water	Black Water
pH	7.1	7.2	6.0
Conductivity (microsiemens)	154	142	17
Total Hardness DH	2.9	4.9	0.12
Carbonate Hardness KH	3.9	4.7	0
Chlorine (mg/L)	<5	<5	<7
Nitrate (mg/L)	0.8	0.8	1.6

Collection data for individual species show pH ranges between 7.6 for Apistogramma cacatoides near the Rio Ucuyali and 4.3 pH for Apistogramma gephyra near the Rio Negro. These varying water conditions especially the extreme blackwater conditions are what help make breeding dwarfs a challenging exercise.

In nature these fish are prey for larger animals, predatory characins such as Hoplias , predatory crenicichlines and predatory catfish, as well as birds and anything else fast enough to catch one.

Hence these fish are not found in open water but in the smaller streams, ponds, pools and remainding areas of flooded land, they are usually found in very shallow water in areas that provide a large number of hiding spaces. In the natural biotope this is usually provided by dense leaf litter on the ground as well as roots and dead branches. Overhanging terretrial vegetation or floating vegetation often provide the required hiding places as well.

By nature they are micropredators, feeding off fresh water crustaceans, insect larvae and the like, so that in captivity they require a fairly high protein diet. They are not necessarily fry predators, of their own or even other species in fact there are reported cases of broody females adopting fry from another species, in aquaria.

Keeping Dwarf Cichlids

Many people think small fish equals small aquarium, this is not necessarily the case. The intraspecies social interaction can best be seen in larger aquariums and of course larger aquariums make it easier to keep and maintain stable water conditions.

Dwarfs have been bred in tanks as small as 20 litres, however in a tank this size there is much higher chance of one partner ending up in not the best of health. Either the female if the male wants to breed and she isnt ready or the male if they spawn and he doesn’t have room to get away from her eggs or fry. General hobbyist opinion is for tanks of about 75 litres in size and preferably ones that provide greater bottom surface area.

SA Dwarfs require extremely clean water, they are highly senstive to nitrites and nitrates, and if water quality is not maintained they become susceptible to bacterial and fungal infections. On the other hand dwarfs seem to be able to handle pH variations with few problems.

Maintaining good water quality requires good biological filtration and frequent water changes. Water changes of 20 - 30 % weekly is not unreasonable, but essentially the more the better. These fish come from big river systems where the water parameters change with the season.

Filtration can be as simple as a decent sized sponge filter, which has the added bonus of growing lots of microorganisms for any fry to munch on.

Given the range of biotopes that fish come from its not easy to pick a single pH and hardness level for a tank. For general maintenance of most dwarfs a pH of about 6.5 and hardness of around 80ppm would be suitable. For successful breeding, pH and hardness need to be matched more closely to the particular species.

Like all cichlids, dwarfs are warm water fish and = like a temperature of about 26C. Any lower - less than 23C and they become prone to ich infestations and other problems. Some species such as Blue Rams (Microgeophagus ramirezi) like warmer water again in the 28C range.

Aquariums should provide lots of cover to make the fish feel secure, this is generally achieved by dense planting of the tank, or if you are like me and can kill any aquarium plants, with some plants and mix of wood, rocks and caves. A sand or fine gravel substrate is ideal, preferably of darker colours as again it makes the fish feel less exposed and vulnerable. Dark colours also show off the colours of the fish better.

The tannin rich waters of the balck water rivers can  be emulated with the use of peat, or alternatively with one of the commercial Black Water  Extract’s, these often seem to trigger spawning when added to the tank.

Dwarfs are, in my opinion, a good community tank fish. They show very little inter species aggression and happily co-exist with most other fish. I would not mix them with fish that are highly energetic, like giant danio’s or silver sharks, or fish of a size that would think them food. Nor would I mix dwarfs from different continents, eg kribs and blue rams, Pevicachromis pulcher and Microgeophagus ramirezi. They can usually be kept successfully with cories, tetras, Ancistrus sp., Discus and Angels in a maintenance situation.

Dwarfs can be finicky eaters. Foods most often accepted are small cichlid pellets such as Tetra Bits, frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp, and mosquitoe larvae are eaten with extreme relish. Small worms such as grindal worms and white worms can be fed occassionally, usually as a breeding conditioning food, small or chopped up earthworms will also be eaten.

Some people feed a home made frozen mix to their dwarfs, which seems to be accepted fairly easily.

Breeding Dwarf Cichlids

Whilst dwarfs can and do breed in a community or maintenance setup as described previously, such a setup is not necessarily going to maximise the number of fry that will survive nor will every species spawn in these generic conditions. Some species have extreme requirements in terms of pH, hardness and conductivity and to produce a viable spawn these need to be matched.

Firstly to start breeding its advisable to find at least a pair of a particular species. This in itself can be a bit of a challenge.

Apistogramma, Dicrossus and Nannacara species are generally sexually dimorphic, in both colouration and size, however this is only for adults, juveniles can be quite indistinguishable, and even as adults sub dominant males will show mostly female colouration in an effort to avoid the attention of a dominant male.

Other species show only subtle differences between the sexes, either way it can make finding a female a little difficult at times.

Most species reach sexual maturity at the sub adult stage, while you are still pondering if that fish is a female or a sub dominant male it may just surprise you by spawning and answering the question for you.

As the life span of Dwarfs is fairly short being between 1 - 3 years, sexual maturity can start to take place as early as 6 or  7 months of age, and has been reported as early as 4 months in aquarium raised Blue Rams. This is a good thing if you arent the sort of person who likes to wait 2 years for your fish to grow up!

All South American dwarfs are egg layers and most are secretive spawners prefering to lay in caves or under rock and wood. Of notable difference are the Microgeophagus species which spawn in small pits in the gravel or on small flat surfaces, and Dicrossus species which spawn on largish plant leaves.

Mating patterns show that Dwarfs form either a father, mother family parental group where both parents care for spawn and fry or a male, mother family parental group where the female cares for the eggs and fry and the male ‘guards the perimeter’. Some fish such Nannacara take this to extremes, where the female doesn’t care what the male does just as long as he stays away, from her and the fry.

Fish that form a father mother family are best kept in pairs, or even numbers of males and females, whilst those that form a male, mother family relationship may pair up temporarily or given enough space may form small harem groups. Amongst harem forming Apistogramma species it seems to be a function of older males, whilst younger males tend to form pairs initially.

Tank setups for breeding should try to emulate the water conditions for that particular species as closely as possible, sufficient suitable spawning sites should be provided, as a rule of thumb this should be one per fish plus one extra. For cave spawners these can be created out of terracaotta pots or coconut shells.

I prefer to use small , 2 inch terracotta pots and enlarge the drainhole and place them up side down in the tank. I can usually tell when some one has spawned as some of the gravel or sand is dug out from inside the pot and placed on top or piled up outside. My A agassizis do this quite a lot and I take it as a sure indicator that there are eggs there.

It often seems that a pair will spawn and have the female eat the eggs fairly quickly. In some cases this is because inappropriate water conditions have been supplied and the eggs are not viable. For example Apistogramma iniridae requires a pH of below 5.5 before viable eggs are produced, similarly Microgeophagus ramirezi requires a carbonate hardness of less than 80ppm for the eggs to be fertilised, water parameters near 80ppm will result in only partial fertilisation of the spawn. Water conductivity is now believed to be another important indicator or factor in successful breeding of Dwarfs.

If your goal in breeding is to maximise the number of successfully raised fry then careful attention to tank mates in a breeding setup is important. Most SA Dwarfs do not lay prolific numbers of eggs, it would be rare to get more than 100 eggs from a spawn and not all those would be raised successfully. More normal spawn appear to be in the range of 30 - 40 successfully raised fry, though a lot of it depends on both the species and the age of the female, with older females tending to produce more eggs per spawn.

Suitable tankmates can include another pair of dwarfs of similar temperament if you have enough room and can landscape the tank to provide visual territory barriers, otherwise top dwelling schooling dither fish such as hatchet or pencil fish or sedate tetras are appropriate.

Some tetras are too aggressive and active and have a taste for fry, Cardinals being a notorious offender. A number of people recommend against keeping cories and other catfish in breeding setups as they can be prone to eat eggs and wrigglers.

If the fish are secure and happy in their environment there is no real need for dither fish, breeding tanks can be placed side by side so the fish next door can act as a distractant for aggressive males or a mirror taped to the side of the tank serves the same purpose.

Hatching periods vary per species but usually fall in the 2 - 4 days for eggs and then 4 - 6 days as wrigglers, so free swimming fry can be seen somewhere between 6 - 10 days after spawning. The females may move the wrigglers around as often as twice a day to various hiding places within the tank. Once free swimming most fry are large enough to take microworms, new hatched brine shrimp, or decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Most will eat some form of egg layer baby food as well as graze on the micro organisms available in an established planted tank.

A notable exception to this is Blue Ram fry, these are very small when hatched and cant handle baby brine shrimp for another 5 - 7 days. These require food as small as vinegar eels and infusoria. They also tend to be fussy and will not eat powdered foods.

Of interest in raising dwarf fry is the affect of pH and temperature on the final sex of the fish. An excellent study on this has been done by Romer, a german scientist. His study revealed that environmental sex determination by temperature was relevant to 33 species of Apistogramma. Sex of the offspring is determined in a period of at least 30 to 40 = days after spawning.

Temperature	23C	26C	29C
% of males in spawn	16.8	49.0	85.9

These figures refer to A. trifasciata, spawned = in 5.5pH

Extreme soft water also seems to aid in fin development, with fish raised in very soft ware producing much more extended fins than those raised in harder water.

Keeping Dwarfs Cichlids in Australia One of the hardest things about keeping SA Dwarfs in Australia is finding them in the first place, then once your found them, finding a pair! I’ve got to the stage where, no matter how expensive I buy at  least 4 fish of the same species. This allows for poorly sexed fish at time of purchase, accidents, disease and increases the chance that I wont be left with a single fish of one particular species and no hope of finding a partner for it.

I’ve rated the availability of SA Dwarfs in Australia, in particular the Sydney region, but given that most dwarfs are pretty hard to find my rating here are fairly relative..

Commonly available (I've seen it in more than one shop a number of times)

Apistogramma agassizi
A. cacatuoides
Dicrossus filamentosus - usually sold under old Genus name of Crenicara
Microgeophagus ramirezi
Nannacara anomala Uncommonly available (Ive seen it in a shop at least once)
A. borelli
A. nijsseni
A. steindachneri
A. viejita
Laetacara curviceps
Laetacara dorsigera
Microgeophagus altispinosa
Nannacara aureocephalus Available but Impossible to find (I’ve seen it on a wholesalers list or know someone who has some)
A. bitaeniata
A. gibbiceps
A. iniridae
A. panduro
Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis

There are a large number of legally importable fish that are not available in Australia. Some of them are quite stunning, for example, Apistogramma atahualpa, and this fish is currently topping my wish list at the moment.

Some of the issues that I feel impede keeping dwarfs  in Australia ,

• availability ! both in numbers and species

• the often poor identification and labelling of species. For example the A gibbiceps I have, were sold by the wholesaler as a totally different species. Apistogrammoides pacullpaensis was actually listed on a wholesalers list as Apistogramma.

• To confuse matters there are a large number of species known to the hobby but not scientifically described that are sold under varying trade names. These can be very difficult to identify exactly.

• No locality data comes with fish from the wholesalers, on the surface this doesn’t seem to be a problem, however for example, there are about 20 different known colour morphs of A agassizi - and we can only get one of them in Australia. There are several scientists who are now starting to think that what we are calling A agassizi colour morphs may actually be up to 12 different species that carry the distinctive  lanceolate tail of the agassizi, with of course the females almost impossible to tell apart!

• Like rift lake cichlids locality is an important identifier of the fish, and fish from a known population should not be crossed with aquarium strain or unknown fish unwittingly.

• The availability of quality imports and the price of  those imports is also an issue, fish from Singapore are typically lower quality, with less intense colours and less parental instincts. Very few wild caught fish make it to Australia but relatively  few German bred imports make it here as well.

• Dwarfs don’t always travel well, and are often in poor condition when they arrive, being so small they don’t last long periods of poor or no food, and rough handling.

Dwarfs have all the personality and character traits of the larger cichlids, its just wrapped up in a smaller bundle. There are some absolutely stunning fish out there, or if you like odd but interesting fish there are plenty of those as well. I can sit and watch my tanks for hours, the way the fish move, how they interact with each other and how they interact with me, all add up to a fascinating group of fish that are so enjoyable and challenging to keep.

Also see our article about South American dwarf cichlid tanks.

Further dwarf cichlid infomation

References

The Cichlid Aquarium - Dr Paul V Loiselle

Dwarf Cichlids -  Horst Linke & Dr Wolfgang Staeck

Romer U & Beisenherz W. (1996) Environmental determination of sex in Apistogramma and two other freshwater fishes. Journal of Fish Biology 48, 714 - 725