Fertility by young ancistrus

[moonlightnight]

On a alround aquariumforum, one of my fellows asked next qwuestion... since no-one answerd I guess we needed specilized help ;)

"Mijn kleine ancistrusjes zijn nu in het stadium van vlugge groei en gewei ontwikkeling bij de man ma mijn vraag is wanneer ze eigenlijk vruchtbaar zijn moet het mannetje echt volledig ontwikkeld zijn want nu zie je net een beetje van het gewei en hoe zit het met het vrouwtje?
alvast bedankt"

try to translate
my smal ancistrus are now in a stage of fast growing tentacles on the snouth... how long does it take before they're fertible, do they need to have fully grown head-set. And how about the female?

[MatsP]

I moved this topic, since it's about Loricariidae...

Bristlenoses are fertile when they have a few bristles - it's hard to say how many bristles or how large they need to be, but they certainly don't need a "full head of bristles".

Females are able to produce eggs when they are around 2-2.5 inches (5-6 cm) long. You can tell that they are gravid (heavy with eggs) when they are ready to spawn.

However, it's probably better to let them grow a little bit bigger before spawning them.

[This applies to "Common bristlenose"

Ancistrus sp(3)

. Other species of

Ancistrus

may be slightly different in size/maturity].

--
Mats