Yesterday, I discovered my first BN spawn. Although I've bred Africans, angels, livebearers, shrimp, etc., I've never bred any cat/pleco/etc., so this is pretty exciting. I DO have a question, though. (Well... maybe a COUPLE of questions.)
Even though I read the "Read This Before Posting" rule, that told me to include information regarding my water parameters and such -- (if I was writing about plecos that have spawned, which I am) -- I'm not planning to list all of that information, because I'm not asking that type of question.
In quite a few places on the web, I have read that BBS should be provided, shortly after the baby BN use up their yolk sacs. Although I am new at this species, I have serious doubts about doing that, and this is why:
If you look at this forum, (just a few postings back), I'm the same aquarist who apparently killed some of his juvenile BN, by allowing them to eat too many high-protein foods. DOAH!! I've been told that due to the Bristlenose' "herbivorian digestive tract", these types of foods lead to big problems, with DEATH being one of them. I understand that BBS have a certain amount of beneficial fatty acids in them, but aside from that, they seem to me to be a lot more of a "protein food", with absolutely NO veggie content, and I *think* no/negligible fiber content.
So I'm hesitant to use that food, unless one of you experts advises me otherwise.
On the topic of food, if you'd be willing to weigh in on these points, I also have these things on my mind:
1) I have read that we can culture algae on rocks, and then put those rocks into the BN nursery tank. I have rocks, presently, in a small tank, in a window. They have biofilm and the start of algae on them. Does this method really work? Can the fry get UP ONTO the rocks, when they are still small? Do BN fry eat biofilm? If they do, is it beneficial, or harmful to them?
2) I have read that "blanched lettuce" is a good first meal. After having raised the other fish that I've raised, I'm having a bit of trouble imagining a BN fry, one day past the expiration of his yolk sac, being able to get a "mouthful" of food, from blanched lettuce. Does THIS method really work? If so, should I blanch the lettuce quickly? Should I cook it until it is limp? Are BN fry considerably bigger than many other fry?
3) Does anyone ever do anything like this: Take Angels Plus Algae Wafers, grind them up in a coffee mill, put some of the powder in a glass with water, shake it like crazy, then use a tippet/eyedropper, to transfer some of that food to the area where the BN fry are?
4) Finally -- Is there any value in doing a "sponge filter squeeze", when the BN fry are quite young? Would they eat the tiny critters? If so, are these critters good for the BN, or are we back at the "high protein" problem? If they are good for the BN, should this method be repeated, and until what age?
Thank you, everyone, for reading, and for any responses. The eggs were deposited on March 3rd, as far as I can tell. This should be interesting. Have a great day.
I can't help it, it's taken forever for me to find a female and finally get a spawn. I found my eggs unattended on the bottom of the tank, so I put them in a net with an airstone and hatched them that way.
But have you found that those canned peas and green beans foul your water quickly? That seemed to happen in my tank, plus another P.C. member wrote a p.m. to me, and told me that he had the same problems with water quality.
