Easy to breed ~ easy to sell?

[traco]

I currently have BN plecos and king tigers. Had numerous spawns from the BN, have not had any from the king tigers. Is there such a thing as a really easy breeder like the BN and something that is a bit more "rare" (excluding really $$$ plecos like the zebra. lol)? I was looking at the snowball pleco as I liked the looks of the dark and spots but they turn more a grey than black when adults?

I was hoping to put these new ones in a moderate planted 90 gallon that currently houses guppies, swords, cories. Temp is 78, PH is 7.6, water is soft. Any ideas for me?

Thanks.

[Bas Pels]

The only easy to breed and easy to sell fishes would be fishes noone has, but which deserve to be very popular

unfortunately, if I knew one, I would have been breeding them myself

You could try and go to a country of origen, but most wild caught fishes are harder to breed than successive generations, so even this solution will not work

[MatsP]

As Bas says, if they are easy to breed, they are going to be easy to come by for the LFS, either by other hobbyists or from commercial breeders. I used to get store credit for my bristlenose babies, but my LFS have their own breeding setup now, so they will take any unwanted fry, but not give any credit of any sort.

Harder to breed species fetch more money, but of course, are also harder to breed, so you don't get quite as many of them, and then the money evens out in the long run. No such thing as "easy money".

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Mats

[traco]

It wasn't so much getting easy money, it was who was easy to breed. What is a pleco that you don't have to play around with water like PH or adding black water extract etc... Is Hypancistrus the next one to step to or Peckoltia?

Thank you all very much for taking to time to give me your opinions. It is appreciated.

Barb

[grokefish]

Pekoltia vitata are suposedly easy to breed and my LFS said they would have as many as I could breed.

Matt

[drpleco]

You can sell the more exotic forms of BN's for about $10 USD each - calico, longfin, blue-eye, etc. They breed just as easy, but sell for much more money. The spawns a much larger than your "fancy" type plecos, too.

[windy1958]

why not try and breed your king tigers first then try something different

[apistomaster]

Pekoltia vitata are suposedly easy to breed and my LFS said they would have as many as I could breed.

Matt

Hi Matt,
Nice species but I haven't seen many " breed and tell' posts about P. vittata, have you? I tried and failed but I did get some photos of P. vittata and used it for my pc avatar. Digital duplication=breeding? It is a small photo.

One really needs to build a foundation of experience breeding the easier fish then attempting increasingly more challenging fish.
Along the way, you will find you have an aptitude for some types of fish that is greater than for others but their really is no way to just discover the keys to breeding anything harder than a guppy without working your way up the ladder.

[grokefish]

Larry that sound like challenge!

I have some vittata I shall get on with it imediately.

Matt

[MatsP]

It is my belief that almost any Hypancistrus or Peckoltia can be bred in captivity, and black-water extract is probably not necessary. Lowering the conductivity [through for example RO water] would be a way to trigger their breeding, particularly initially. Finding a male to go with a female or the other way around would be one of the tricky problems [like with many fish], because it's unlikely that the shop will have well-conditioned fish, and apparently [at least when it comes to Peckoltia] the males are more prevalent than females, due to the tendency of the male to stay in a cave when stressed, whilst females will swim away. [This has to do with the breeding behaviour, since the male will want a good cave to attract the female to].

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Mats

[grokefish]

Interesting suff Mats

Matt

[apistomaster]

Larry that sound like challenge!

I have some vittata I shall get on with it imediately.

Matt

That's the spirit! I will give you to Christmas to blow me away with photos of a tank full of juvies.
More seriously, I wish you success. I really like this species and although I did not succeed in breeding them, the photos of the young ones under the species profile and Janne's article are good inspiration for the project.

I thought about writing an article and I actually will for my new website about breeding L134 but the truth is, in the case of my L134's, they just hung out for 2 years until one day there were fry. I think that is how a lot of us "breed' our fish.

[plec0]

talking about guppies LARRY. HECK I cant even get my fancy guppies to breed for me and i got 1 male and 3 female in a 10 gallon tank I no good in making fish want to bang and get frisky.

[Bas Pels]

Seriously,

I have had lots of trouble getting my guppies to spawn. So I stopped and turned my attention to somewhat harder fish

But last year I managed to lat a tank of endler guppies get extinct

[Loracidlover]

Interesting stuff what you say about males appearing in larger numbers than females in shop tanks Mats, I've noticed this with alot of Loricariidae, when buying a group of L002 recently I only managed to spot 2 females in a group of about 15 fish. I thought it may be due to the males preference to cramming themselves in logs when alarmed too.
Conrad

[apistomaster]

Seriously,

I have had lots of trouble getting my guppies to spawn. So I stopped and turned my attention to somewhat harder fish

But last year I managed to lat a tank of endler guppies get extinct

I had to try Endler's twice before I got a colony established. They were not even a particularly good looking strain at that.
I decided that beginner's fish are for beginners and I should keep to trying more difficult fish projects. This seems to work better for me.
Of course easy is a relative thing. I raise some SA Annuals, including the "easy" Simpsonichthys constanciae, which is really a much more difficult fish to breed and raise than say, a common Ancistrus sp3, and being an annual, they don't give you much time to rectify mistakes before they enter senility.
I'm feeling rather proud of myself for getting about 40 hatched and just reaching breeding size and age. 3 months of waiting for them to incubate then only 6 weeks before some have reached early maturity. Annual Killiefish have nothing to do with catfish but they are a good test of a fish keeper's patience. Some make you wait six months before you can try to hatch them. Pretty cool when it works but frustrating if nothing hatches.
I have plenty of experience with that.

[Bas Pels]

I decided that beginner's fish are for beginners and I should keep to trying more difficult fish projects. This seems to work better for me.

That summarises it nicely

[grokefish]

I have about onehundred and eleventy three million endlers and 200 Uaru at the minute of different batches (3", 1" and .25 ").
The endlers breed like crazy and I havn't any freaks yet.

Matt

[nvcichlids]

I have yet to have any luck breeding plecos, but hopefully that will soon change.
I have, however, ended up with some breeding banjos which I thought was unique cause I had forgotten they were even in the tank (sand substraight does that). As for other fish, I have huge success with livebearers and the Lake Tanganyikan shell dwellers. I have spawned a few apistos in the past, and hope that this new batch of youngin apistos will wield me a couple of breeding pairs.

Best of luck to you on that challenge, I would be interested in your fry =P

[ElTofi]

Very interessant topic...

here in Switzerland, it's not that easy to sell your juvenils, even if they are not that common...

For example, I have around 50 Hypancistrus king tiger all year long (they spawn every 4-5 weeks) and I'm just unable to sell them just because most of the people around here just want a fancy "glass cleaner". Except if it's about L46, nobody wants to talk about it.

Same problem with the Pseuda babies (by the way, the 5th spawn is on going ) : just impossible to sell them around here. They will go in October to a French friend of mine who will maybe be able to sell them on the German market

It's just impossible to go in a shop here in Switzerland because they don't want to make business with someone "out of the trade"... and I'm not the kind of guy selling my fishes to somebody who will let them die in ugly conditions...

what to do then ? Twice a year (in Lausanne and in Evian) there are some fishes addicted meetings (sorry, I don't know the right word. In French : "bourse") where you can sell (exchange) your babies... but it's a lot of troubles for poor results... and once more, who can be sure how your babies will finish ?

that's the most important point for me... I'd like to know if the guy who's taking them will be able to keep them alive in good conditions... and why not, have a second generation ?

[nvcichlids]

I'd take some of your king tigers, if you want to ship across the big pond!

[ElTofi]

I'd take some of your king tigers, if you want to ship across the big pond!

I guess it's a too big pond for them to arrive in good conditions... I'm sure you can find somebody "on your side" of the Atlantic to give (or to sell) you some L66, no ?

sorry...