My first plec spawning- Ancistrus sp.3

[Carp37]

I know these are the guppies of the loricariid world, but I'm delighted that my trio (1 male, 2 females) have finally produced fry- I'm just a bit worried as to what to feed them! Reading around (mainly on this site) it looks like they should be able to tackle vegetables, algae wafers and crushed flake immediately, and I seem to remember seeing somewhere that liquifry or microworm can be soaked into courgette/cucumber etc. as well. Is there anything else I should be adding as a dietary supplement? I think it's their first spawn- they never showed any interest before I bought a slate cave off a fellow member of a local aquarist society (thanks Alan) despite having a couple of cave-like ornaments in there beforehand.


picture of the male last week


blurred picture of fry

[Matien]

Hi,
Congratulation for this first one!

Courgettes and spinach leaves will be be fine. basicaly, I feed mines as I feed the parents...

See you
Matien

[Carp37]

Thanks Matien...

[MatsP]

Congrats.

--
Mats

[andywoolloo]

wow...awesome!

[harsmann]

Hi,

the bristlenoses in my community tank are also in happy circumstances . How are the chances for some of the fry to survive to adulthood in the tank ?

The largest fish in the tank are two male kribs, maybe 3" long, so I am more concerned about the fry starving.

Will the fry get enough to eat from fresh, daily vegetables?

[Carp37]

Hi Harsmann- everyone I've spoken to or has posted to this or similar threads suggests that vegetables, possibly supplemented with liquifry, microworm, baby brine shrimp and/or crushed flake, should be sufficient, but my fry have yet to identify courgette, sliced very thin and immersed in boiling water for a couple of minutes, as food; I've even tried smearing microworm over it. I have seen fry on the courgette, but no more than over the filter, gravel, bogwood, slate cave or plastic plants, so I don't think they identify it as food yet (but then again my Panaque maccus took 3 months to identify it as food, and still prefer bloodworm). If you supply vegetables every day they'll presumably eventually recognise them as food- my concern is whether mine'll starve first, or if there's enough gunk in the (very thin) layer of gravel and over the decor to keep them going for a week or so first.

I've had to remove my Fluval 2+/3+ filter (a 2+ powerhead with a 3+ filter box) as the fry kept going in there and not always coming out- whilst doing a filter clean I found 5 live and 2 dead fry in amongst the filter sponges. As a result I've taken the sponge filters out of my Geophagus iporangensis fry and switched their Fluval 2+ back on, and used one of the sponge filters in this tank. I'd like this to be a temporary solution as I've never been confident that sponge filters are as efficient as people claim with filtration, and with all the slices of courgette (so the adults don't fight so much and so the fry can find some without being unceremoniously turfed off by the adults)the potential for an ammonia spike is quite high. The adults also appear to relish the circulation the Fluval provides.

The 5 fish that were alive in the filter I've transferred to my increasingly crowded Corydoras pygmaeus tank (which also has 4 guppy/endlers hybrid fry and about 10 of the geo fry) as an insurance policy against total loss. The parents' tank (which also contains an ever increasing number of endlers) has upwards of 18 fry still in there.

Bizarrely, I also rescued the male yesterday, whether he needed it or not. He'd somehow wedged himself between the tank glass and the slate cave, and gone a very strange colour and started breathing in a somewhat laboured fashion (his bristles and eyes were also mashed flat on his head)- after over an hour of this I decided he could be stuck and it was wisest to extricate him, and move the cave 1/4" further from the front of the tank.

[harsmann]

Hi Carp

Thanks for your answer. I will try to catch some of the small guys and transfer them to a fry tanks and feed them properly. Since the tank is newly setup, there probably isn't much to eat in the gravel yet.

[Carp37]

I'm worried I might have messed this up- instead of feeding three largish chunks of courgette (to give the 3 adults a chance of eating in peace, although the male usually turfs the females off saying "mine" even then unless I can make it so the pieces aren't visible) I've been adding 8 very thin slices daily, and a gravel-vac and water change every two days. However, I think the last lot of courgette (zucchini) I added must have been on its way out, as I returned home from work to a VERY cloudy tank. I changed 8 gallons of water (out of 14 or so UK gallons) and removed any mush/crud/chewed wood etc. I could find, and am hoping I don't kill off all the fish in the tank... An ammonia/ammonium test gave a minimum non-zero reading (0.25), so I might be doing a largescale water change again today...

[Richard B]

A bit late chipping in...sorry!

Any suceess should be celebrated- nice one! Just because it is a more common variety doesn't make it any less special

[Matien]

Hi Carp37,
I hope you and your fishes will be fine. You are doing the right thing by changing water and removing the remaining courgette.

In the future, instead of several slices, just put a bigger portion : even if your male will chase the others at the beginning, he will let the courgette once he will be "stuffed", and the other will be able to approach.
Usually, courgette survives about 24h before starting to decompose/disolve in the water. This time frame will let enough time to your fishes to eat before you remove the remaining.
See you,
Matien

[Carp37]

Thanks Matien- I did reduce the number of slices last night (before I saw your post), but the courgette that went off had been in for only about 20 hours- I think it had probably started to go soft as it was the end of the courgette, so in future I'll avoid using any vegetables that might be a bit close to going off!

I'm still on 60% water changes as ammonia/ammonium was still showing at 0.25 mg/l (or very slightly over?- I use the Tetra test kits which say to read the colour after 20 minutes, but the test water plus reagents continue to darken during the first hour, so I'm not sure if I really am supposed to be reading at 20 minutes or at its darkest colour). I'm not comfortable with ANY ammonia reading so the water changes will stay at a high level until things improve...

On a brighter note, I saw at least 35 fry last night- the most I'd seen before was about 25...

[Carp37]

I've moved about 25 fry out of this tank now as the male's also spawned with the other female- this could get old fast! If they do it again soon they're going to be sleeping in separate beds. A couple of pics of the parents and fry:

[N2Biomes]

Congrats on the spawn! The fry are so cute

My ABNs just had another spawn this morning - their third, actually. I've been putting the cave, male, and wrigglers into a baby net in the home tank. I remove the male and cave once the fry come out to play. Once the fry get to about a month- 6 weeks old, I move them into a grow-out tank.

Keep feeding courgette, your fry will get the idea. I offer a fresh chunk of courgette daily along with 1-2 algae wafers to the babies. They eat the courgette down to the skin in no time, only then do they move to the algae wafers.

Sorry, I don't know how to post photos here - I have shots of the babies in the breeder net in my PlecoFanatics gallery.

[Carp37]

Thanks N2B; I think moving the male will be necessary soon. The fry now do feed on courgette, but they still prefer flake, catfish pellets etc., and sucking gravel/rasping bogwood.

I've replaced the power filter in the tank as water quality was getting worse instead of better with the sponge filter, despite changing 50% of the water every day, and covered it with netting from an old micromesh fishing keepnet. I also moved about 30 fry to my 4' tank with the Brochis in it. The mesh netting hasn't yet been 100% successful at keeping fry out of the filter, although it does seem to be able to keep all the older fry out of the filter; I've added more rubber bands to it this time to try and make sure there's nowhere the younger fry can sneak round it.

[Carp37]

Last pics for now I promise... this almost is the first time I've been able to photograph the male and one of the females together because even if the male's not hungry he'll always chase off the females in his line of sight- perhaps "Mr Angry" is mellowing with age!

[Fantasticfins]

Nice pics. Congrats on your success. I like their spotting and how nice the fry look. Beatiful fish.

[pLaurent1251]

Wonderful pics! The parents and fry look great.

[andywoolloo]

I love the whole family picture! So there is never any eating of fry by the parents then?

[Carp37]

I love the whole family picture! So there is never any eating of fry by the parents then?

Nope they seem to ignore them completely- the parents still squabble between themselves and occasionally bulldoze the fry out of the way, but they don't seem to be aggressive towards, or protective of, the fry once they leave the cave. The male was very protective of the area round his cave when he was brooding the second batch, but even then didn't prevent fry from the first batch flitting round the cave entrance.

[andywoolloo]

very interesting!

[Carp37]

These are still cute- I spend more time watching these than any of my other fish at the moment!

[andywoolloo]

I know this may sound silly, but I was wondering, do they ever pick them up and move them? like cats and dogs do?

[Carp37]

I know this may sound silly, but I was wondering, do they ever pick them up and move them? like cats and dogs do?

Not deliberately no- they do knock them out of the way like skittles sometimes... Plecos don't have any parental care once the fry have left the male's cave (a fortnight or so), but neither do they show any agression to the fry, even though they're very aggessive at times to each other.

However, the Geophagus iporangensis parents (dwarf eartheater cichlids) used to regularly collect fry in their mouths and spit them out somewhere they thought was safer- the female used to collect fry near the male because she thought he was an unfit father.


mother geo and fry


geo fry

Excuse mucky tank glass