I have kept several types of apistos before but I have never kept A. cacatuoides. I was over Mike Jacobs house looking at one of his tanks of cacatuoides, he said he was looking to get rid of them and I should take some home so we bagged up a male and two females.

I had set up a ten gallon with some driftwood, Java fern and some clay pots. The substrate was sand and I used ten parts RO water to one part tap water. The pH was adjusted to 6.2. They were feed frozen bloodworms and my homemade food. They received a 50% water change every two weeks.

It didn’t take long for them to spawn. It looked like there were about 20 babies. The parents took care of them and every thing was going well for the first two weeks. Then she killed the male. She continued to take care of the fry and she didn’t bother the other female.

After removing the fry I added another male to the tank. Every thing was good and after a couple of weeks she had spawned with the new male. Again every thing was good for the first week but then she killed the new male and also the other female. She continued to raise the fry.

After the second killings I decided to retire this female and try again with her fry. I have kept one male and two females that I hope to have better long-term success.