L183 fry dying

[MTS]

My L183 pair have bred three times since xmas. Each time the fry have left the cave but only lived for a few weeks.(about 30 each time) After the first spawn died I removed the gravel substrate which was only about 1 cm thick. The second spawn also died so I increased the filtration. I did have a water problem.The tap water contained nitrate between 10 -20 ppm so water changing wasn't reducing the nitrate but I dont think it got much above 20ppm. This is now ok.
I should say I have a 4 foot tank with two fluval 305's. Two large sponges filters.One breeding pair of L183 and about 4 juveniles, a few cmn bn's( juvies) and about 6 albinos. I was getting no ammonia or nitrite readings. Prior to these fish the tank housed a colony of common bn's.
I added nitrasorb? to one filter and nitrate levels are around 10ppm. I have a few ceramic caves and two bits of driftwood, Mopani and something else.
recently my third batch died within days of leaving the cave. I know about possible bacteria on bare bottom tanks but I wonder if it is something else. Could I have been overfiltering?
I am only using one filter now and two spongefilters.
I did noticed that two of the albino's had camallanous worms. I removed all of the abn from the tank and treated them and they are not going back. I also treated the remaining L183 for worms but didnt really see any. Could the excretia from the infected abn's have posioned the fry?
I was about to add the fry to a fry saver when they all died.
I am about to give up. Any ideas?
MTS

[apistomaster]

L183 question should be posted under the SA Loricaridae.
Water should be free of nitrates, extremely soft and pH of about six. A little black water extract or peat filtration might not hurt either.
Instead of letting the fry run freely about the breeding tank, confine them in a net breeder so they are kept in close proximity of the food and yet still reap the benefits of the stability and cleanliness of the larger breeding tank. Feed both high protein foods and fresh parboiled veggeies or canned green beans. I use both chilled freshly hatched brine shrimp and earthworm sticks to feed my little plecos.
Many newly released pleco fry do much better when they are kept confined and close to their food for their first few weeks.

[MatsP]

I moved this thread to the right forum, as Larry said, it belongs in South American Loricariidae.

Two things come to mind: Food competition and bare bottoms. Janne, who is a very experienced breeder has documented that bare-bottom tanks are detrimental to good fry development in fish that live on the bottom of the tank a large portion of the time.

Food competition is that the fry will not be able to compet with larger Ancistrus, such as

Ancistrus sp(3)

- that would be the albinos and common ones. Move those to another tank [or sell them or whatever] if you wish to breed the more sensitive and valuable

Ancistrus dolichopterus

.

Plenty of food, clean water, gravel on the bottom, and you should be OK.

The pH and hardness of the water is most likely OK, because I doubt the fish will spawn and the fry hatch if the pH is wrong.

--
Mats

[MTS]

sorry about posting in the wrong spot.lol I had a long day and should have been in bed.
ph is around 6.5 My local water is soft. The next batch is going into a fry saver. I will put the breeding log in it until they leave the cave and then remove dad and the cave.
I feed a variety of food, zucchini, shrimp pellets, spirulia disks, flake etc. I did notice that the fry that didnt stay on the bottom lived longer.
thanks for the advice
MTS

[Firestorming]

Where on the coast are you?

I have 183's coming out my wahzoo, I cant stop them from breeding and I loose maybe 1-2 fry a batch.

If your not too far away I would be happy to drop by when I have some spare time and maybe see whats wrong.

[MTS]

I am at Ourimbah. Thanks for the offer firestorming. I think I will be ok if I use the fry saver. I am also considering putting sand in as a substrate. I should be swarming with pepps myself my now. I am pretty sure Ive lost over 100 since xmas. Ive bred hundreds of commons without any problems (i know they are pretty easy but you would think I would have problems if water was the issue).

[apistomaster]

It only takes a thin layer of sand to take care of the bottom problem. Less than 1/4 inch is fine and yet you retain much of the ease of cleaning as a bare bottom tank. I have done this to all my tanks even my discus tanks. I don't like the completely bare bottom based on looks but I also find that fry of all kinds seem to do better if the bottom glass is just barely concealed.

[Barbie]

I, on the other hand, use many bare bottom tanks for raising a plethora of many types of bristlenose fry with absolutely no problems. It really has to do with your individual situation, and IMO,too much focus is put on the substrate always being the cause. It definitely can be a contributing factor, but I don't think it is necessarily the one causing the problem in this instance. I know the L183 available in Aus. tends to actually not be true L183, also, but the fry should be similar to other blackwater ancistrus in their demands. Our tap nitrates are usually under 10ppm here, but I've had them get as high as 40ppm in fry tanks when I was terribly overstocked with no losses. I would definitely look at the amount and type of food, amount and frequency of water changes, and potential damage being done by tank mates as the causes, if they were mine. You say your water is soft and the pH is about 6 but the addition of more food for the fry could potentially be causing your pH to crash much lower quite easily, also. This would be something that was harder on the fry than the adults to survive. If you do water changes with water at a pH of 6.5 and you still can't read anything higher than 6 when you test, the odds are good you were much lower than that in the tank itself, IME.

Barbie

[MTS]

Thanks for all the responses. I started using filtered water for the waterchanges as I was concerned it was something in the water. The ph of the tap water used to be a lot higher but we have had so much rain lately that it seems to have dropped. (I think that is the reason) Could also explain higher nitrate readings. It is starting to drive me insane, I dont know if I can handle another loss. But I will persist.