L183 tank setup help please

[danielryan]

i have my pair of 183's in their own tank now. but i think i might have put too much wood in there?

when i 1st put them in there i kept it very simple, thin sand base 4 caves, and 2 peices of wood.

The male would constantly be in 1 of the caves, but the female was showing stress markings constantly, and lived on the bottom of the internal filter.

i though maybe i didnt have enough hiding places, so added 4 more peices of pre soaked wood. but now the male never goes on the cave, and i never ever see them! they dont ever come out from behind the wood, and they wont take any food i put in there, i always have to hoover it out the next day.

They are still alive! and eating the wood i presume, as the amount of waste they are producing is monumental!

but if they arent coming out to eat, how can i start feeding them up to be in breeding condition? should i re-arrange the tank again? taking some of the wood out?

should there be any free swimming fish in the tank, as they are in there on their own

[Mod edit: Modify title --Mats]

[apistomaster]

Sounds like your original set up was good.
Only having a pair will result in not seeing them often. I know L183 are hard to find and are often expensive but I think having a larger group would help. They will still hide but it seems easier to breed most plecos in colonies than it is in pairs, common Ancistrus cirrhosus being an exception. They have become thoroughly adapted to life in captivity unlike the majority of pleco species.

I sometimes keep a school of some Pencilfish or other top water dwelling fish, Hatchetfish is another example. These help make the apparently empty tanks become more interesting and these fish are very unlikely to cause any fry that hatch out any problems. I use cherry shrimp for the same reasons. I have not tried keeping Cherry Shrimp in water at very low low pH(>6.0) but they can adapt to very soft water with only 50 ppm TDS. The shrimp coexist well with small to medium sized plecos and the top water Characin species I mentioned.
The shrimp that tolerate lower pH also tend to do best in cooler water than most black water Ancistrus would be able to tolerate.

[danielryan]

i do have a couple of sub adults i could add to the tank, would this help in anyway, or as a colony would this only consist of adults?

[apistomaster]

I think adding the other specimens would be helpful even if they are still immature.
They young fish would probably grow faster in with the pair because I imagine you have and would continue taking particularly good care of the pair and their tank. They might add to the social dynamic and that may help the pair become more interested in each other.
It always seems to me that breeding plecos becomes easier when they are kept in groups.

I seem to be missing one of my Leopard Frog Peckoltia sp L134 breeders. I know it did not jump out or die and what I suspect happened was it was probably wedged in a deep crevice in a piece of wood I removed. Now I only have 4 breeders. I thought I would add a 4 of my oldest F1 specimens, which are about 16 months old and almost 3 inches, with the same idea in mind as I suggested to you above.
I don't know how shy of reaching maturity your 2 immature L183 are but 16 month L134 may only be less than six months short of reaching maturity. They can use this time to become a more integrated group by the time the younger fish mature.

[danielryan]

i have added a few mollies which are just a few weeks old to the tank now, and this has helped, certainly the female is out more, and looking around.

Still havent managed to catch the other few that i have, they are in the big community tank, and without taking it apart, its going to take me a while to herd them up!!

[MatsP]

Mollies are not good companions for Ancistrus dolichopterus, as they like hard alkaline water, where the Ancistrus likes soft acidic water. Whilst you may well have water that is good for mollies and your Ancistrus is doing fine in that, if you plan on breeding, I suspect you'll want to dump a load of RO water in the tank, which would make it bad for mollies - and the last you thing you need if you're trying to breed fish is that there is a big ammonia spike from one or more dead fish.

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Mats

[danielryan]

mat i havent started playing with the water yet, i'm still just getting them used to each other, and the tank etc.

We do have progress tho, they have both been exploring the caves today, and just generally hanging out together.

the male was also in a cave backwards, until i stupidly put my head round the corner to see what was happening in the tank, and scared him off!!

[danielryan]

and as it turns out, i didnt need to play with the water, they have now bred!!

i have eggs in a fry saver, just waiting to hatch!

[MatsP]

Congratulations.

Do you have pictures of the parents?

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Mats