I got caught up in the "oh, aw" game

[traco]

With more plecos available out there, I found it was so easy to get caught up in the oh, aw, game. You know, oh.... I love L066s .... aw, what about these L134s .... and so forth. It is so easy to buy but I'm going to have to get smart and ask questions on what would be suited for my specific water parameters.

I've bred BN plecos, easy to breed, easy to care. I then got some L066 and have had no luck with spawning them, so then started looking at what else was out there. I was wanting to try something different than the BN. My water params are:

PH 7.6
Conductivity is 190
Alkalinity is 70
Hardness is 80

Could you steer me towards what would be suitable? It looks like hypancistrus do best with some RO water when trying to get a spawn, I've read? I don't want to start fiddling around with the water, I'd just love to get a nice looking, different than LFS, not a large pleco, to hopefully be happy in my tank and grant me some fry down the road.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Barb

[ashik]

Hello fellow canuck!

In terms of hypan breeding, it seems to be a waiting game for many. RO I don't think is required, as I have heard many stories of people spawning various hypans after a large tap water WC. Also, a local (Toronto) breeder of zebra plecos breeds his in treated (prime or something) tap water, and ours is harder than the specs you put up, so you should be fine.

[racoll]

Generally I think people (myself included) are too impatient when trying to breed fishes, especially plecs.

They think too much in terms of setting the correct water parameters with all kinds of methods and potions.

Your medium-soft water sounds perfect for keeping plecs. The pH should drop to nearer neutral after a few months when the acids build up.

Its probably better to first concentrate on conditioning them with the best possible diet you can (with lots of live foods) and then being as patient as possible.

Success is usually measured in years rather than months, especially when you don't have fully mature fish.

This is not to say providing breeding triggers such as RO water does not have its place, but very often, well conditioned fish will just spawn on their own with no encouragement.

Best of luck with your project.

[MatsP]

Note also that even captive bred plecos are somewhat seasonal in their breeding, so they may only breed in one part of the year - and trying to make them breed at any other time of the year can be near impossible, no matter what you do (or don't do) to them.

--
Mats

[traco]

With my BN spawning no problem and my king tigers not, I figured I was doing something wrong with them. Patience is the key, after reading your replies. Thanks muchly for your answers.

Barb

[CanadaPleco]

Welcome to the board, nice to see another Canadian here

There are a few people in the Toronto area that are breeding King Tigers in regular tap water I believe.

Rich