New to breeding.

[Josh_Mcfadden]

Hi,

I have recently been drawn into catfish. I have always wanted to try my luck at breeding them and just wanted some tips from everyone who seems to be having success with them.

Size of tank? Gallons, (L"xW"xH")
Substrate or no substrate?
Breeding caves? Where do you find them? Do you make your own?
And depending on the species how many do you start with in a colony?

Thanks,
-Josh

[Lloydy]

Hi Josh,

You may need to do different things for different catfish. Most people start with something simple like BN (Bristlenose) plecs and then move onto more advanced/difficult species to look after and breed.

Are there any particular catfish that you want to try and breed? This will help to narrow down the advice you will receive.

[MatsP]

The "how to breed plecos" is not entirely trivial. Obviously, a lot of what you are asking for depends on the size of the fish itself - a fish that is a foot long will need a bigger tank than one that is about 2" long fully grown.

A fairly generic measure for a cave is around 1.5x the total length of the fish, and a tad taller than the fish is high and width about 1.3x the width of the fish at the widest point. My caves are all home-made, from different materials and different methods - bamboo segments make simple caves, drilling holes in wood is OK up to small-medium size fish, whilst tiles, slate or similar is a useful material for making larger caves. Almost all sizes of caves can be built with PVC/ABS pipes - they may not look very natural, but by all accounts they work. I've used terracotta pots/saucers (for outdoor gardening normally), and use that to make a cave - for example an upside down saucer with one part of the "lip" cut off makes a great cave for Ancistrus and such fish.

Some people take pottery classes at schools or join pottery clubs and such to make clay caves and fire them in a kiln.

There are companies (small and large) that make various forms of caves to buy.

And whilst I've given a pretty precise formula above, I'd say "vary it a bit, and give the fish a choice" - I'm sure we could come up with a formula for the right size bed, sofa, armchair etc, but people still buy different sizes/shapes of those. So give the fish a chance to choose what it likes best.

Tank size is basically the same principle. I use a rule of 4L x 2L x 2L, where L is the size of the fish - that's a minimum size, of course, you can keep smaller fish in the same size tank.

Nearly all plecos can be bred with a pair, but some people seem to have better luck with a larger group - whether that is just because those breeders already had good success with other things, or that there is a good reason to have a larger group. Obviously, with more different fish, the chances of getting them to "hit it off with each other" is more likely.

I'm not a fan of bare bottom tanks, and several members have had bad experiences with only slight lapses in care when cleaning the bottom of a bare-bottom tank, where there appear to be more margin of error for the cleaning with a tank with a layer of fine gravel or sand. I believe several cory breeders have similar stories to tell.

The other part about breeding is to start with something relatively easy - one of the easiest is

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

. They breed (most of the time) at the drop of a hat, and will is a good start for learning how to care for the fry, etc. There is nothing much worse than getting an expensive/difficult fish to spawn, and then loose all the fry - this will PROBABLY happen even with some practice on an easier to breed/bring up, but hopefully it doesn't take 2-3 tries before you get there.

Which brings me to the biggest factor in success with Plecos: Patience. You need that in lakes of the stuff, not just a few buckets. If at first you don't succeed, try again, and again, and again. May help to change something a bit now and again, but for a large part of it, it's simply "enough time will sort it".

--
Mats

[Jon]

The most important things to consider when spawning loricariids are water conditions and cave size/placement. Everything else is of secondary importance.

[Richard B]

The most important things to consider when spawning loricariids are water conditions and cave size/placement. Everything else is of secondary importance.

This advice is quite sound & should be heeded but not to sound obvious the most important thing without question is to have males & females! Some species are quite tricky to tell the sexes apart, so if you are new it might be better to start with something easy, gain experience, then move forward.

I know of several people who throw big money around to get groups of peckoltia or Hyp's etc who don't follow Jon's advice & have no success at all.

[Josh_Mcfadden]

Thanks everyone,

I do have 1m 2f L208. And 1m 1f Albino bn. All are still to young to breed but I hope to add numbers to the L208 colony and keep them long term in the 50g. This being said I want to stay with smaller species, since I will only be able to keep several tanks 75g and lower. My water quality is excellent but my ph is a tad high. It reads 7.4. I still need to look into getting some smaller caves, I'm sure they would appreciate that. I'll try and post some pictures.

Thanks again,
Josh

[MatsP]

The albino bristlenose shouldn't be hard to breed, and 7.4 pH is fine for them (they breed in any pH from 5.5 to 8.5, I think).

L208 is not the easiest to breed, and if you are getting a larger group, make sure you are certain they are the same species, as some of these fish are often confused with similar fish of different species/regional variants.

--
Mats