Adopting this juvie Midevil cutiepants killer?

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Jeremy Anderson

Jeremy Anderson

Exodon
MFK Member
Dec 4, 2017
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Potatoland
hoboflyfishing.com
I have never kept larger aggressive fish, actually pretty new to fishkeeping altogether. I seem to keep my rams and discus pretty happy and produced and raised some Apistogramma fry. I just do a lot of water changes, it’s basically my exercise program, haha. Seriously, though.
The plan is to put him in a cycled 40 breeder while I set up a 75 gallon for him. Living currently in some weird size of ~30 gallon at the LFS with several smaller american cichlids. He has been there a few weeks and seems pretty mild mannered and healthy.
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I am mostly just excited, I guess. I like his face and personality from what I have seen, though I do plan to keep him solo, I think he migh be one of those community-oriented Amphs, but I suppose he could go beast mode any minute. I say he but I have no clue.

My only concern is that my water may be a bit too soft out of the tap. It runs at 60-70ppm TDS and pH6.7-6.8 currently. Would a bit of alkaline buffer be a good idea? I have some nice neutral river gravel that has just a touch of aragonite mixed in, by accident. Would that make sense to use for this fish? The aragonite is 5% or less of the total material. Like I said, I am pretty newb. I have a basic understanding of water chemistry but there is a lot of conflicting information out there about optimal comditions for different species. I think the LFS has water around 400ppm around 7.6pH, but the fish I bring home from there, which is most of the fish we have, have had zero problems acclimating. Any tips for providing good conditions for this fish?
 
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Jexnell said:
Cute fish, best of luck to you!
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Thanks, I appreciate it!

I moved some Apisto fry out of this 40B to make room for her for the next few days, but I didn’t quite get them all before she went in. They hid up around the outflow strainer and I didn’t spot them. She tried to suck down one of them as soon as she spotted it, but missed and backed right off when the net came out. The little ones seemed to become less afraid of the net when they realized who their new roommate was. I am pretty sure I rescued them all. Lol, oops.

If I had to guess I would say this is a female, I am just guessing based on the few vent pics I have seen. Pretty new to sexing fish, but I can call the gender of a snake at ten paces with a fair amount of accuracy. Developing an eye for it requires experience, surely, and I bet some of you experts already have a guess that is better than mine.

Still curious if leaving the aragonite in with the gravel is a good idea, one way or another, or should I tediously pick most of it out of there?

As I said before, my water is pretty dang soft out of the tap, 3.5 dKH.

Is adding some small amount of something to raise hardness in her tank a good idea?
 
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as far as im concerned my midevil does very well in relatively softer water. his ph stays right around 7.

thats a pretty one. i introduced a creamsicle that looked like yours to mine a couple months back in hopes of a pair. it was...gruesome.
 
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Thanks for the replies. I think I am going to keep it simple, will pick out most of the aragonite from the gravel when I set up the 75. Not going to sweat it much, all the other fish seem quite happy, and this is as soft as our water has ever been in three years. I guess I had the answer all along.
 
Jeremy Anderson said:
Thanks for the replies. I think I am going to keep it simple, will pick out most of the aragonite from the gravel when I set up the 75. Not going to sweat it much, all the other fish seem quite happy, and this is as soft as our water has ever been in three years. I guess I had the answer all along.
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Great looking fish. You will find that he/she is much easier to keep than any of the other fish you have. Do NOT pick the aragonite out of the gravel - it will help stabilize and increase your PH, which would be a good thing for your fish, given what you have out of the tap. I get 6.9 our of the tap, and given a heavy load and some driftwood, I was finding the PH dropping too low for me. I have pool sand, so I added some CarribSea Rubble Zone. One gallon of that made a huge difference in slightly increasing my PH, and keeping it there - even when I have to go for a while w/out cleaning. Good luck.
 
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NW Cichlid Keith said:
Great looking fish. You will find that he/she is much easier to keep than any of the other fish you have. Do NOT pick the aragonite out of the gravel - it will help stabilize and increase your PH, which would be a good thing for your fish, given what you have out of the tap. I get 6.9 our of the tap, and given a heavy load and some driftwood, I was finding the PH dropping too low for me. I have pool sand, so I added some CarribSea Rubble Zone. One gallon of that made a huge difference in slightly increasing my PH, and keeping it there - even when I have to go for a while w/out cleaning. Good luck.
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I was not too sure how much the aragonite would affect pH, I picked some out but not nearly all, and was about to run it as is. Thanks for your input, it helps me feel good about it. I actually put a fair bit of research in on the volcanic lagoons of Nicaragua and their water chemistry. and concluded Amphilophus are probably extremely adaptable and resilient, based on how much variation exists in their originating environments. And how they’ve invaded the canals of Florida
 
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