Can you Provide a link so I can research this more ?

@@christianleeperrr7641 Hello Christian. Sorry I cannot provide a link to the information I posted. This is because it stems from my tenure as Technical Editor of the British Cichlid Association, where I communicated with members who wrote up their experiences, exchanges of information with members of the Apistogramma Study Group and the American Cichlid Association. Also, I was a research technician at the University of London and carried out my own research programme on dwarf cichlids at that time, 1972-1992, before I moved to Africa. During this time I read all the available research literature, attended conferences and conducted experiments. One particular paper comes to mind, published in Nature ca 1982, which described the 'sneaky fucker' strategy in fishes, but not necessarily in dwarf cichlids. This behaviour was at that time well known in salmon, where small satellite males would sneak between spawning pairs and fertilize eggs. Their resemblance to females would afford them some protection from the dominant males. I cannot find this reference atm because it is amongst the hundreds of papers stored in my attic, and it would take a long time to sort through all the boxes. I first came across this problem of 'males in disguise' when collecting wild apistos from importers. I paired off some A. borellii for observation only to see the males beat the hell out of the females. This happened a number of times until I separated the injured fish out, only for them to develop into males. In isolation they had no competition, no female resources, so they expressed their secondary sexual characteristics: large size, bright colours, extended finnage. This phenomenon is not new and I'm sure there has been recent study on it, but I haven't kept up with developments in the field. I posted my comments to warn newcomers to dwarf cichlid keeping that this situation can arise and that some of their breeding failures may not be their fault.

This isn’t a “choice”. It’s an evolutionary strategy to assure that less dominant or colorful males pass their genetic material on. It happens in a ton of fish species.

@@kurt942003 Sorry about my 'choice' of words, but having worked on fish behaviour I have gotten used to seeing other workers use the term 'mate choice in ...' . However, this does appear to be a deliberate strategy, having seen this behaviour in at least 2 species of apistos in sequential broods. But we won't know for certain until someone unravels the genetics of breeding behavior in fishes. We cannot discount the possibility of late developer males being forced to make the best of a bad situation, which implies they are left with no choice, maybe due to pheromonal suppression from older, dominant males. Could be one of a suite of options in their repertoire.

Thanks! If I'm honest I keep my apistos at 23-24 C, which is WAY cooler than most people seem to say, but they eat and breed and squabble and do all the other stuff apistos do, my male is 3 now and the female is coming up to 1 year old (replacement for an old girl who jumped out of my tank while I was rearranging the decor) and for the most part they have always been fine. So.... In my heart I think no they don't need as much heat as people say, but I'm not an expert and I wouldn't like to give bad advice, even if it works for me.

Hey Jason. Yeah tigers are a bit of an easy target as they are so well known for being boisterous, but it sounds like you have got yours to a happy medium where they have each other to play with and not the other fish. I've been pretty hit and miss with them, though mine were green ones which I believe can be more temperamental, I kept them with neons absolutely fine, they got terrorised by my red tailed shark, and they nipped my apistos tails! All good fun though, tigers are certainly entertaining to keep :)

@@tinymenagerie I didn't know that about the green barbs. I'll look into that as I was thinking of adding some to the shoal, but I don't want to unbalance things. Thanks for that

Hey Camilla, sorry this is a late reply. My apistos are awful bullies to each other too, but the other way around - it's my male who gets bullied. The female will harass him until he just gives up trying to hide and hovers somewhere. They now live apart, and I only reintroduce him when I want to female to spawn, otherwise she would gladly bully him to death. Hopefully thing are going better with yours, best of luck!

Maybe, but not really. Apistos are not like Africans, and I take it that by "Africans" you mean Malawi mbuna. The males will become territorial and fights will occur, even in a big tank. You will be able to keep two species together, but they will have to be from different groups of species, e.g. agassizii and cacatuoides, so they don't overlap in body shape which triggers aggression. Plenty of hiding places, well spaced, with breaks in line of sight. Can be done but not easy.

Hole-in-the-head disease is usually treated with metronidazole (Flagyl), but I don't know what Lauren used. Other antibiotics and antibacterials are also used, but the choice will depend on the results of a swab test.