rm
Passport
- Family
- Sth American Cichlids - dwarf
- Grows to
- 5 cm (2")
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- CareSuggested
- Intermediate
- SwimsSuggested
- On the bottom
- Keep
- In a group of 2 or more
- Water
- 22–29 °C (72–84 °F)
Brazil
Care requirements
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On record for Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid: adult size, temperature, ph, hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level, tank length.
Not on record for Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid: lifespan, minimum tank.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- pH 5–7
- Hardness 0–10 dGH
- Diet carnivore
- Tank length 60 cm minimum
Keeping notes
Captive-bred ones settle into a community tank. Wild-caught fish do best alone or with a few small dither fish, and never with another Apistogramma. Keep a pair, give them caves, and expect the female to guard her fry fiercely.
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Agassiz's is the dwarf cichlid with the spade. The male's tail comes to a distinct point rather than fanning out, and it's the quickest way to recognise the species among a shelf of similar Apistogramma.
Colour varies enormously depending on where the wild population came from — red, blue, gold and "fire" forms are all the same species from different rivers, and tank-bred lines have been selected further. A good male is a genuinely spectacular fish.
They're a step less forgiving than a cockatoo cichlid. Wild-caught stock in particular wants soft acidic water and reacts badly to anything else, so it's worth knowing which you're buying.
Tank setup
Keep them as a harem, one male to several females, with a cave for each female. Two males in a small tank ends badly, and a single female bears the whole weight of the male's attention.
Give them soft, acidic, tannin-stained water if you can. This matters more here than for most of the genus, and it's the difference between fish that merely live and fish that colour up and spawn.
Floor the tank with sand and cover it in leaf litter. They forage through it, the tannins suit them, and the micro-life that grows in decomposing leaves feeds the fry.
Keep the lighting dim and add floating plants.
Divide the floor with wood, plants and rock so each female has a defensible corner.
Feeding
Agassiz's are micropredators taking small invertebrates from the substrate and leaf litter.
Feed live and frozen food as the core: bloodworm, daphnia, brine shrimp, cyclops, grindal worm. Wild-caught fish often refuse dried food entirely at first.
Offer everything on or near the bottom. They have little interest in the surface.
Avoid: dried food as the mainstay, which keeps them alive and stops them breeding and colouring.
Filtration and flow
Gentle flow, and a sponge filter for preference. They come from still, shallow, shaded water and fry will be in the tank sooner than you expect.
Soft acidic water has little buffering, so keep water changes small, regular and matched.
Keep nitrate low. It's the slow killer in a dwarf cichlid tank.
With plants
Agassiz's dwarf cichlids are safe with plants and don't eat them, though a spawning female will shift sand around her cave.
Plant heavily at the edges and leave clear foraging ground. Cryptocorynes suit the soft acidic water and the low light equally well.
Leaf litter does more for this species than any planting. It's cover, food and chemistry in one.
Health
They're moderately hardy in the right water and fragile in the wrong water, which is most of what determines how people get on with them.
Wild-caught fish arrive stressed and often carrying parasites. Quarantine if you can, and expect a settling-in period.
Watch for a female permanently excluded from cover. In a harem with too few caves she will be harried until she fails.
Breeding
They're cave spawners with the female doing everything. She lays inside, turns a vivid yellow, and defends the cave against the male and anything else that approaches.
Water chemistry decides the sex ratio, which is unusual and worth knowing: warmer, more acidic conditions skew broods heavily toward males, and many first-time breeders end up with almost no females.
The female leads fry out to forage in a tight cloud and drives them back to cover at any disturbance. They take baby brine shrimp and microworm straight away.
Tank mates
Avoid10
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid grows to 15 cm against Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid at 5 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid grows to 15 cm against Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid at 5 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Least Killifish Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid grows to 5 cm against Least Killifish at 2 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Scarlet Badis Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid grows to 5 cm against Scarlet Badis at 2 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Common Goldfish Common Goldfish is not safe with Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid: common goldfish and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a bad pairing.
Only with care28
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is peaceful.
- Amano Shrimp Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Amano Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Bamboo Shrimp Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Bamboo Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Bolt Shrimp Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Blue Bolt Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Dream Shrimp Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Blue Dream Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 68 species in the database, so nothing to flag. 2 species are not covered at all, so they could not be judged either way.