I've been pretty short on info for the new guys who may not have seen my threads from the past. I've learned an awful lot that has gone against conventional wisdom. Here's a short list...
You can't have plants with guapotes. - FALSE
You can't have guapotes peacefully cohabitate. - FALSE
Dovii are intolerant of tankmates. - FALSE
Breeding guapotes with fry will destroy anyone else in the tank. - FALSE
Multiple breeding pairs of guapotes in the same tank will only result in multiple murders. - FALSE (well, sort of, thousands and thousands of fry have been eaten)
Saltwater/brackish mangroves won't live in freshwater. - FALSE
My philosophy and what has worked for me over the years has always been to keep the fishes happy. I keep the temps warm, feed heavily with a large variety including live foods, provide plenty of "houses" so each fish or pair has their own territory, and double overkill filtration with a giant UV sterilizer. And don't forget large, frequent water changes. I've slacked off recently due to the health reasons I mentioned before, but the overkill filtration and mangroves have kept water parameters in check. I've paid the penalty of no breeding for a while though. Large, frequent water changes whether nitrates are high or not is very important. Their are many more things that build up in the water your fishes don't like besides nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia (hormones, etc.).
Guapotes have a sort of undeserved reputation as aggressive stone cold killers. Truth be told, they are far more territorial than blood thirsty. I have all five varieties in the same tank, with several bonded pairs. In the time this tank has been going, there was only one murder. When I added the male dovii, there was also a female about 3 1/2". She was very timid and made the mistake of trying to hide in a cloud of about 5,000 loiselli fry. She paid for that mistake with half of her face bitten off the first night. I chalk this up to the small female's atitude more than sheer aggressiveness of the parents. She was so overwhelmed by the number of large fishes, she went to hide the first place she could find. The parents tried to get her out of their fry's grazing area, but she had found a nook to hide in. If that small female had found a place to hide away from the fry, I'm positive she'd still be there today.
Besides that, I have had a couple of losses due to a variety of health reasons. First was ich, I fixed that with heat and salt. I also got the biggest UV sterilizer I could find, a 36 watt Coralife Turbotwist. I haven't had a parasite/disease/clarity problem since. I lost a giant male managuense from banging into the glass to protect his fry. My daughter startled him and he rammed the glass in the older 190g setup. He paralyzed himself and wouldn't eat. I tried everything and gave him over a month, but finally had to put him down with clove oil. The female loiselli got a blockage from shrimp shell and I couldn't save her.
The important thing was I tried to learn from the mistakes I have made and make changes that would prevent the same thing from happening again. For instance, I only feed peeled shrimp now. And the UV sterilizer, this is a great piece of equipment, almost magic. And I should probably stress that luck has played a huge part in this. I would be fooling myself if I somehow thought I was smarter than everybody else. The risks with a tank like this are huge. The rewards of it's success and being able to enjoy the behavior and beauty of these big guapotes is even bigger!
