Breeding BN plecos

[Industrial]

So I have two long fin albino BN plecos and I am wondering how to tell when they are ready to breed. The male is older than the female. He is a little larger and has bristles a little thicker than a nickle. I got the female first and she is a little smaller.

I am wondering how to tell when they are old enough to breed or how big they need to be. I am also unsure if size includes tailfin or not.

Lastly, I am seeing LF chocolate BN plecos. Could these be crossbred?

[trebor69]

put some sort of cave facing the front of the tank where you can see in with a light...I like caves that are a little longer than the male and an opening about the size so that his pectoral and dorsal fins can touch the side when erect

feed them well...I dont think its really needed but some say you should feed an increased amount of protein to the female
to aid in egg production. The female should get noticeably plump and the belly looks dark when viewed from below.

the male should hang in the cave almost all the time....when you see the female showing interest in the cave it wont be long til you see eggs in there

heres a couple articles here on PC on the topic

http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... cle_id=314

http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... cle_id=328

on the lengths there is two ways to do it....
standard length (SL) does not include the tail
tail length (TL) does include the tail

[andywoolloo]

lol be careful what you wish for, once these start breeding they do not stop! no period of dormancy!

mine were in a 40 gal breeder. 3 females 2 males. Sand bottom. Multiple cave choices. Driftwood al over. Live plants, anubias, java ferns, crypts. Rena XP3 and a Tetra whisper ex70 filtration. mine liked it to be about 80 82 degrees.

I changed 50% water once a week, adding in only Prime, Boyds Vitachem and seachem flourish. Once babies started coming started changing 50% water twice a week.

I never had to manipulate the water temp, they just spawned. I fed the adults a rotation of sinking Hikari algae wafers, sinking OSI spirulina wafers, sinking Omega One veggie rounds, sinking Omega One shrimp pellets, sinking NLS granules. Other stuff I am sure I am forgetting. But like 80% herbivore 20 % carnivore. Defrosted Hikari 2 xs a week of either bloodworms, tubifex, shrimp, krill etc. Every single night the adults got fresh raw veg and fruit. zuchinni and cucumber and sweet bell pepper strips and mushroom , romaine lettuce and mango etc... The fry got also some NLS Grow and whatever the adults got.

I covered the intakes also.

watch out for your filters. takes alot of work . good luck!!

[Richard B]

standard length (SL) does not include the tail
tail length (TL) does include the tail

TL stands for total length, but yes it does mean the overall length including the tail.

I haven't seen any longfin B/N that weren't a variety of the common

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

so the breeding you mention should be easily possible

[trebor69]

TL stands for total length, but yes it does mean the overall length including the tail.

doh... see my brain wanted to include the tail so that's what my fingers typed

[Richard B]

doh... see my brain wanted to include the tail so that's what my fingers typed

Be aware, this only happens to the best people!!!