L-66 male on eggs in cave

[Fantasticfins]

I have been spawning L-66 for a few years now. I usually get 30-32 eggs each spawn. Cave is 2" tall, 3" wide, and 7" deep.

[apistomaster]

My. what big eggs you/they have. Sounds like you have L66 well dialed in.
Any photos of juveniles?

[Fantasticfins]

Here's a pic of eggs and a pic of juveniles.These are pics of when I pulled fry from the cave and he had eggs and fry and they all came out. I put the eggs back in the cave and he went back to work on them as if I never did anything. He's a good dad.

[Easystreet]

Those are some great pictures.

What are your water parameters if you don't mind me asking. I have 3 L066 of unidentified sex. My ph is high for them at 7.7 I am thinking of going with a di/ro system. Yours are doing so well I am curious what your water is like.

Thanks,
Jason

[I_Xeno]

nice job

[andywoolloo]

wow, awesome!

[Barbie]

It's been my experience that most Hypancistrus don't care what the pH of the water is. I have bred 4 different species at 7.8, no problem. The RO/DI unit will come in handy for providing the rainy season stimulation to get them going though ;).

Those are great pics Dale! We need to see some more!

Barbie

[Fantasticfins]

Here they are all huddled up in a breeder box after I removed them from the cave. I only have 2 boys, yet there are 5 girls. I took the fry because another female was trying to get into his cave. Hopefully, she will be there in the morning. There were 17 fry in this batch.

[DaveT]

Fantastic Pictures.

I have 5 L66 in a 3foot tank, looks like i have 3 males, 1 female the last one is either female or a young male.

Well they bred, only the male seems to be having problems keeping them in the cave and for the last couple of days ive been picking up wrigglers and placing them in a breeding trap. at the moment i have 15 wrigglers in the trap, ive lost a couple to fungus, i think these two lost their fight to emerge from the egg.

well im looking for advice really on how to care for them them, as the only experience i have breeding catfish is with BN plecs, the father was awesome so i never had to use the breeding trap with them.

At the moment i have the breeding trap infront of an internal filter to make sure that it gets plenty of highly areated water passing through the breeding trap

The tank water is the same as my discus tank, Rebuilt RO water, rebuilt too 180-210 TDS kh 4 and gh 4 ph of the water before it goes in teh tank is normally about 7.8 but the tanks stabilise slightly lower than this, normally 7-7.5.

ive read the article on breeding L066 and as that is the only article that ive found on breeding l66 i was curious as to if poeple had any advice for me

reguards

Dave

[Barbie]

First, put something under the mouth of the cave so that it tips back. That will keep the fry from being thrown out as easily and give the male more of a chance to care for them. I use a breeding condo that I designed out of a commonly available specimen container. I run water in over the side with a regular sponge filter and I cut a whole in the side that I put a notched sponge in. That keeps the water in the container clean at all times and keeps the fry from getting loose, but allows the food to stay in with the fish. Hope this helps ;).

Barbie

[DaveT]

Hi Barbie thanks for the quick reply.

what would you do with the wriggler? put them back in the cave or keep them in the breeding trap? if the later then at which point are they safe to be returned to the main tank?

I read somewhere that the fry wont be touched by adults but am unsure if to trust them with Wrigglers, im guessing they will be an easy meal

[apistomaster]

I would just finish raising the larvae in a net breeder. Once out of the cave, unless there are still others in it and the male continues to care for them, it is probably not a good idea trying to put them back in the cave.
Barbie's suggestion of elevating the mouth of the cave is the best way to prevent it from happing again.
I enjoy seeing your photos. I never tire of seeing what the neotonates look like of the various pleco species.

[Fantasticfins]

They're back at it again. I got a batch of 30 out of the cave last night.

These are some that were from a few weeks ago. They are starting to look more like their parents. I can see how juvenile L-66 could be mistaken for L-236 occasionally. They aren't far from them in looks when they are about 2". These little guys are about 1"-1.25".

[andywoolloo]

that's so cool! You have some happy tigers there, breeding away!

[apistomaster]

Hi Fantastic,
I'm only have some L134 breeding but something happened this week seems relevant to your situation since all these things seem to have pretty much the same breeding habits.
I have more females than males just like you do with your L66.
One male released a brood, then the other male released a brood. Then four days later one of them let loose another brood about 4 days younger than the last. All of these releases occurred within 7 days.
One of the dudes had to have spawned with another female while still brooding an older batch of eggs or larvae.
This is the first time I have seen them double up spawns.
I had a trio of albino Ancistrus sp 3 that routinely spawned consecutively with both females within no more than 24 hours of each other.