# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna > Cichlids >  Dither fish that are safe for Apistogramma fries

## EvolutionZ

hi guys.. as im aquaring my 1 female and 1 pair of apisto for both my 2ft and 1ft cube tank soon.
would like to ask what small fishes will not eat the apisto fries? i guess you guys don't remove your dither fish when your female guarding the egg right?
so far a bro told me boraras brigrittae wont eat apisto fries..
anymore?

thanks

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## raymond

hi evo,

My guess is that if the dither fish get too close to the female and the group of apisto fries, most likely the female apisto and maybe even the male apisto will make sure they never live to survive another day. haha

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## EvolutionZ

its true though.. but you never know if some fries decided to scatter away from the group and ended up in the dither fish stomach.

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## trident

Evo,
It's better to remove dithers when your apisto breed,
gives you a peace of mind.
I removed all dithers when my caca breed.  :Smile:

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## EvolutionZ

wont the female freak out and eat the eggs when your net go down the water and try to catch the dithers?

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## trident

That's what I thought happened after I removed the dithers and next day the fries disappear.  :Sad:

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## illumnae

i have found boraras, hatchetfish and pencilfish to be fry safe

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## CacaManiac

my thought is that if i were in a tank with some fry... if i get the chance, i wouldnt mind snagging a juicy little fish baby for a snack

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## doppelbanddwarf

I had no problems with removing the dither fish, but if you really want dither fish I think illumnae's options should be quite safe.

However as CaCaManiac pointed out, live food is always appreciated.

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## EvolutionZ

was wondering how do you guys remove the dithers when your female started guarding the eggs?

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## doppelbanddwarf

Eh put a net in and scoop the dithers out? I removed the male and the dithers.

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## doppelbanddwarf

Oops forgot to point out, the female did try to attack the net. :Confused:

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## genes

CacaManiac is spot on! And I think i have mentioned this in other threads before. 

ALL dither fishes eat fries. Especially when they are just free swimming. Be it the small boraras or the surface hatchets, as long as they get the chance or if a fry decided to stray away from the mother without her noticing, they will end up as food.

Remove dithers once you get free swimming fries.

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## EvolutionZ

yea of course i know put a net in and scoop.. but im worried that the female will eat the eggs when the nets go swinging around the tank..




> CacaManiac is spot on! And I think i have mentioned this in other threads before. 
> 
> ALL dither fishes eat fries. Especially when they are just free swimming. Be it the small boraras or the surface hatchets, as long as they get the chance or if a fry decided to stray away from the mother without her noticing, they will end up as food.
> 
> Remove dithers once you get free swimming fries.


hmm.. you got a point there... even mount cannot fit, i guess the fish will try to take a bite. maybe we can use food to lure the dithers into the net? :Roll Eyes:

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## illumnae

dithers can be caught with a fast hand a much patience. just wait till they wander near the surface and scoop away. i've seen tetras eat my fry, but so far the options i've mentioned have left the fry well alone, possibly because they can't match up to the female guarding her brood.

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## yorky

Why do you need dithers if you are planning to go into breeding your apistos?
Also IMHO, by introducing dithers or for that matter additional fishes, you are potentially exposing your precios apistos to diseases carried by additional fishes.
Especially wild caught dithers....

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## EvolutionZ

yorky : i always thought that dither fishes are there to spread the aggression of the apisto?

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## yorky

As far as I know, dithers are used to 'lure' the apistos to be less shy/skittish.

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## EvolutionZ

ohh.. but my male agasizzi has been in my 2ft tank for 2weeks with 20 other boraras and its still soooo shy until now...

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## yorky

Put another pair of Apistos in the tank.. your Aga sure come out. hehe.

I used to have dithers just for the fun of it. It didnt' do any difference too.
So these days I don't use dithers at all.

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## EvolutionZ

haha. will be buying the female soon for this male..

anyway... i acctually feel that without dithers tank abit empty.. haha..

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## genes

Dithers can be rather useful at distracting the attention of the more aggressive gender (usually male) at times so that the female can slip away to safety. However, what is more important is to provide ample hiding space by means of plants, leaf litter, woods or caves.

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## EvolutionZ

hi guys.. i removed my dithers for a few days in my ap.trifasciata tank.. my female got some splitting at the tail although i have plenty of hiding space in the 1ft cube..
just added 8 ember tetra as dithers.. i guess they are fries-safe?
i have to feed them frozen daphina because the NLS .5mm pellet cannot fit their mouth.. while my boraras brigrittae's mouth can fit the NLS pellets..

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## Quixotic

> i have to feed them frozen daphina because the NLS .5mm pellet cannot fit their mouth.. while my boraras brigrittae's mouth can fit the NLS pellets..


The ember tetras in the market right now are very young/juvenile fish, they have yet to reach their potential size.

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## EvolutionZ

oh... i heard that ember tetras reach a max size of 2cm~?
mine was around 1 - 1.5cm now.. kinda quite.. some orangy colour while some are colourless =)

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## Quixotic

Two things to note when talking about size.

1. They could either be referring to SL (standard length), TL (total length) or FL (fork length). 
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...5&postcount=22

2. Fishbase quote 2 cm SL as the size. Note that this is probably based on the collection sample size when they are formerly described.

Inevitably, there will be some variance in these sizes, but they should not exceed very much. The ones in my tank are about 3 cm SL, but they are still considerably one of the smaller fishes, so they should be okay for your purpose.

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## illumnae

tetras are voracious fry gobblers. have fun netting them out when your apistos spawn  :Razz:

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## Quixotic

Well, so are cyprinids, including _Boraras_ spp. Not forgetting, pencilfish or hatchetfish are tetras too.  :Wink: 

Again, the rule of thumb is anything that fits in the mouth is potentially food. But these can be minimised if you have a large enough tank, lots of hiding places, feeding the fishes well, and so on, you get the idea.

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## illumnae

haha i've caught my hatchetfish attempting to fry gobble too, so for me boraras and pencilfish are the only 2 fry-safe fish that i've tried thus far. for the boraras, it's probably because firstly, they're small enough to be kept safely at bay by the protective mum and secondly, they're small enough that even newly hatched fry can't fit into their mouth. for pencilfish though, i don't see them even attempting to snatch a bite of fresh baby fish

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## ranmasatome

I dont really understand the validity of this thread....
There is no such thing as a fry-safe characin/cyprinid....not anything you can commonly buy in our market at least.

Rule of thumb.. if it fits the mouth, its food. More so if its swims and moves around. Newly hatched fry can fit into boraras mouth....easily...

When considering dither fish, you also have to consider how large your aquarium is...
if you have a large aquarium, your fish are probably not going to interact as much and there is going to be more space for fish to move around for safety etc. When you have a small aquarium...e.g. a 1ft or 1.5 ft... your dithers are just going to bump into your fries a lot more... basically.. that just means free meal for your dithers.

Whether you see them eat your fry or not, is another matter.... they are eating your fry whether you see it or not... either at a fast pace or at a measly slow pace... should they meet, they WILL EAT your fry PERIOD... just remove them.

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## illumnae

that's your opinion i guess

i beg to differ based on my personal experience. i guess if you really really want to, you can go explain to my boraras and pencilfish that fry are actually really nice to eat  :Roll Eyes: . but for now, they ignore newly born fry

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## ranmasatome

So here's the verdict evolutionZ...
Since we all don't have fishes from YX's fish tank...and only have access to the ones that still do eat fry.... i guess you should still remove them.

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## illumnae

i've never denied that the fish he chose as dithers would eat fry anyhow, i did say his tetras are voracious fry eaters  :Wink:  i'd like to see if he can catch any boraras eat fry should he choose to use those as dithers

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## ranmasatome

Yeah.. so end of the day EvolutionZ, it is still remove them... and dont add anything else that is already mentioned unless you want to get them from YX's tank.

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## celticfish

Okay, here's another point to note on general cichlid behaviour.
The parental instincts of the fish is pretty good which sort of explains why people love to keep them.
Seeing proud and fierce parents swmming around the tank with swarm of fry give a really high "feel good" factor to the hobbyist.
I certainly felt good when I saw mine.  :Grin: 

The parents have a set of "signals" of fin flapping/opening/closing to signal the fry to do various things.
The most obvious behavior seen is for the fry to just drop to the gravel and keep still to aviod danger while the parents "take care" of the intruder.
And the other for the swarm to "tighten" closer and around the parents.
In nature the dawn and dusk period of lighting goes dark and bright over a period of time.
So when dusk is approaching the parents will realise this and have enough time to round up the herd and signal the fry to "bed down" for the night.

In our tanks the light go on/off suddenly unless you have a dimming function that can be done over a time period.
When that is done fry that have wondered to far will suddenly be lost as they are unable to see the parents signals.
This is when fry loss is highest in our aquariums.
Animal instinct is opportunistic feeding.
If a fry wonders close to me I'll make a meal of it.
To make matters worse the confined environment like our tanks increases the odds of a fry stumbling into a predator/larger fish during the night.

Yes, most cichlid parents are great guardians but they cannot defend what the cannot see.
But we can provide some help to them to even the odds.
In our tanks, that means the follwoing points:

a) Don't turn off the lights suddenly (btw I still haven't figured out how to do this myself  :Opps: ).
b) Better yet, leave a little night light on through-out the night period. 
c) Or have enough ambient light for the parents be able to see danger and the fry to see the parents signals to them.

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## EvolutionZ

thanks for all your comments.. guess i will remove any dithers when my apisto breed. thanks

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## genes

Yup, once they breed, remove all of the dithers to play safe. I do not have dithers in my tank when the female is with free swimming fries. This way, i can ensure a higher survival rate of the fries.

What celticfish mentioned about the night where losses are high is so true. I witnessed the lost of my boraras brigittae instead. My female A. cacatuoides was herding over 70fries in my tank. Rather impossible to keep an eye on all of them especially when they are slow moving, curious little fellas that would explore areas out of the safe zone when they grew bold. Thats where i saw my boraras brigittae pick them off the moment mother fish is chasing away other predators, or did not catch them straying away from the herd. At lights off, it was revenge time, i saw my male A. cacatuoides pick off the boraras brigittae while they are sleeping. Its a vicious cycle. The nature way of life. Eat and be eaten...  :Laughing:

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## yorky

EvolutionZ, ask yourself what's your priority in buying this pair of apisto?
For breeding purposes or just general appreciation of the fish and its characteristics?
If you are really into breeding and therefore very concerned about fry casualties, forget about dithers. 

Supposed you have dithers and if your dithers are hard to catch, and hence, your eagerness in catching the dithers out, you'll run the risk of the possibility of your apistos eating up their brood.  :Opps: 

Else, just let nature takes it course.. 

I hope you get my point.

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## illumnae

i've lost 6 marbled hatchets and 3 zebra otos to a pair of protective/vengeful parents in the last week  :Sad:  ironic thing is that the otos were fry-safe (oh no, angry ranma, i said the taboo words again!)...i think the parents just saw another fish nearby and went to whack.

this pair is the most protective pair of parents i've ever kept...perhaps it's the nature of wild fish to be more protective, since the danger of predation is all the more real in the wild?

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## Simon

parental instincts are built into the gene, doesn't matter whether it is a wild or domestic breed. Some pairs are more aggressive while others are not very experience and will eventually learn the ways of being a better parents. Ultimately, you get good or bad parents, adding dither may or may not help, at the end of the day, if you intend to breed your fishes, less distraction (no dither) will be a better choice. Add dither only increases the risk, risk of the frys getting eaten by the dither, risk of over protective parents killing the dither. 

Using dither in a big tank may not be the same as in a small tank

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## Simon

please guys, let's not go overboard and go out of topic. If you guys have any personal views on anything, please talk it about nicely or PM each other.

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## benetay

I have to support Celticfish's reply, thanks Irwin for it! 

I'm going for the 'no dither' concept. I used to think that dither do help but after awhile it make no sense in keeping them. They do not contribute to the success of spawn. I will rather have a chiller or do water change to induce spawning. 

I've not seen dithers contributing fairly in the spawning cycle. Netting out the male will do the job. So till now i've not got sufficient reasons for myself to add dithers into a breeding tank. 

I'm still thinking, a large enough tank 4ft or more got ample space for 1 pair of apisto to play hide & seek so i don't even need dithers to reduce conflict. 

Well bottom line will be what do you want for yourself, a breeding tank,a planted tank, a mixed tank? When i had my 6 footer it houses only 4 pieces of apisto of one species. If one is serious about breeding, why not use artificial hatching method? It could yield better results then to leave them to the parents. Save the extra money from dithers for a better sponge filter. Sponge filters are expensive investment, so get the best you can afford. Easily 2-3 sponge filter can set you back $100+ 

There is no concrete proof of dithers to be good or bad, it happens to come as a topic when they are talking about the natural habitat of apisto where tetras are found. So till now dithers or no dithers doesn't make apisto spawn more. I believe for those who are going to be very critical on their apisto, try artificial hatching method. It's by far the most tedious of the lot raising fries.It can also turn the table of zero fries to some fries. 

Having a higher tank e.g. 2.5ft with pencil fish as dither doesn't even make them dither since they occupy the top range whereas apisto occupy the bottom. I've kept them together before but that was when my main objective isn't to spawn.

I see no reason for further comments regarding dithers when Thread Starter hasn't give a concrete objective of what he wants. 




> anyway... i acctually feel that without dithers tank abit empty.. haha..


Instead of arguing on dithers, we should look at the issue on hand. Feeling that tank is empty & thus adding dither. 




> just added 8 ember tetra as dithers.. i guess they are fries-safe?


Another case of compulsive addition. So lets not go around on dithers but how & why dithers are needed or discourage.

So now with 1 pair of A.tri, he should be looking at how to induce them to spawn. Yes my fastest recording timing for A.tri spawn is 5 minutes after introduction of the male to the female after conditioning. 

We can only replicate nature but we are never near it. 


Good luck!

Cheers!

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