need some help

[cichlidman16yearsold]

how do you tell sex on a common pleco. i got 12 of them for free and want to know how to breed them also. any help would be nice will get pic latter on in the day. all so how do i set up the tank

[MatsP]

Why do you want to breed common plecos? They are available in nearly every shop (for very little money), grow too large for most people to properly care for them throughout the fish's full life... What do you plan to do with the hundreds or thousands of babies you get? If you do not have contracts with a wholesaler already to sell them, you are unlikely to be able to sell the off-spring - your LFS probably wont want to have more than a hundred or so per batch - say once every couple of months, and if you have a dozen fish with equal number of males and females, you should be able to produce several thousand every month.

Where do you live [it does say aroura in your profile, but there is no country or other information to tell us WHERE aroura actually is - which the "rules" actually say you should have]?

Do you have a large pond dug out of the ground with just "mud" walls (that is, built without a liner)?

If you don't live somewhere where there aren't common plecos as an invasive species, I would suggest that you should only breed them indoors to prevent further spread of this fish.

As to sexing, have you had a look in the FAQ (under Help! in the menu) - it does explain there. But given the number of them, one would think that it's very unlikely that you have only one sex - it is, assuming the whole group breeds about 50/50 m/f ratio, statistically, one chance in about 2000 that you have all males or all females - that seems very unlikely.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

well mats p i do have a hole seller i can sell them to. and i live in Colorado. and iam just looking to breed these guys first to help me breed some rarer plecos. i just want a little experience first. so any help

[MatsP]

So, I expect you've just mistyped your location and mean Aurora, CO, which is near Denver. Winter high temperature in Denver is abour 40'F. This is far too cold for these being outdoors.

So, you need an indoors tank. Given that they probably should be about a foot or so when they are mature enough to breed, we're looking at a tank that is at least 2ft x 2ft x 4ft - but you also need to have enough space to have 2ft deep caves in the tank, and enough space for the males to feel secure, so if you actually plan on getting a dozen fish in a tank, we'll probably need something that is more like 4ft wide and 8ft long, and about two foot deep. Do you have a tank that sort of size at the moment? And suitable filtration for it? Because if not, you're looking to spent something like $4000 to breed fish that you get perhaps $0.25 each. So, to recover that investment, you either need to breed a large amount of valable fish, or you need to breed about 16000 common plecos (and sell them). Is the wholesaler local to Colorado? Do they sell all over the country?

Would it not make more sense to breed for example common Ancistrus. They can be bred in a average size tank, 20-30gal size is perfectly fine.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

well i do have a 600 gallon breeder tank witch is bigger than the tank that you told me is recommend to me. and it is up and running fine. and my hole seller does ship out of the country and locally. and i do not have any other plecos i can get experience on. and the reason i want to get experience with these plecos is because if i kill them i wont fell bad because they did not cost me a arm and a leg. not if some one gave me bristlenose plecos i would try to breed them but i dont have any right now. and i dont have any money to spend on any. so if you know any one with bristlenose plecos her in Colorado or wants to ship them. that wants to get rid of any for free let me know

[L number Banana]

Hi cichlidman16yearsold,

Nice to see younger people getting into catfish

It would certainly be an idea to trade these fish for smaller pleco to breed like the ones MatsP suggested, the bristlenoses,

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

. Some pet stores will do a trade. You won't get 12 for 12 but for many kinds you only need a male and some females but not twelve. Look up the information on the link above and also check out Shane's World tab on the top and look under Reproduction and have a nice cruise through Catfishology - lots of good general info there.

You also said that if they die, you won't feel so bad but beware that most catfish have such obvious "personalities" that after you've had them for a while, losing one is like losing a puppy or a favourite cat. With catfish, most keepers are pretty devestated when they lose one, even if it's free.

What's in the big tank right now? Will they be okay with the eggs of your plecos or are they the type to eat them? Is it empty?

Also, You might want to consider putting Colorado in your profile so others in your area will know you're near and maybe trades can happen at some point.

[MatsP]

And the wholesaler has told you in writing that they will buy htousands of common plecos at tiny size from you? These are normally sold at around 2" or bigger, and the size of tank to keep a couple of thousand fry to that size is just enormous - 1000x 2" is at least 2000 gallon.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

yes my hole seller has told me this. if you dont want me to breed these fish please tell me and i wont. and please send me or have some one give me some thing i can breed

[MatsP]

I don't want you to spend a lot of effort on breeding common plecos, and here's why:
1. More common plecos aren't needed in the hobby - yes there are plenty of them sold in fish-shops all the time. But 99.9% of the people who buy these fish do NOT have a 600 gallon tank, which is rougly what you need for a 2ft fish, and if these fishes are quite capable of growing to that size. How many of your class-mates/work-mates (at 17 I expect you are in school, but if you are not, then I expect you do some sort of work).

2. I don't realy believe it's EASY to breed these fish as a hobbyist, for a number of reasons. Mainly space and water maintenance, but I'm also not sure how easy it is to actually trigger them to breed in a tank - they may need more variation in temperature than can easily be achieved indoors - outdoors, when the seasons change, you automaticaly get varying temperatures.

3. I doubt that if you have a 600 gallon tank and related filtration etc, that you can't affort the $10-20 per fish to buy a small group of common ancistrus. For five fish + shipping from this auction, you have to pay $30, and you'd have a good chance of getting both males and females.
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/ ... 1284244949
(I have absolutely no idea if this seller is good, bad or inbetween - it was the just one I picked at random when searching on aquabid - there were at least ten auction and many of them "buy now" when I searched for "Ancistrus")
These fish are of course small, so they would have to grow out a bit - probably about 4-6 months.

If you want to flood your wholesaler with fish that you have bred, why not do that with fish that are actually beneficial to the hobbyist, rather than fish that will undoubtedly lead to disappointed keepers in one way or another. Common plecos grow too large for average home aquaria, and they are very tolerant to poor water, so will outlive just about any tank-mates, which means that they will (peacefully) kill their tankmates by producing too much waste.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

but the hole reason i want to breed these fish is because i have no money right now and i cant get money for awile. to get any Bristlenose. i got these common plecos for free. so if some one would like to give me Bristlenose plecos for free i would try to breed them

[MatsP]

How large are your common plecos? If they are not adults, you are most likely going to spend more money on food for these fish, than you would on buying and feeding a decent group of Ancistrus.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

most of them are like 11 to 15 inches long

[MatsP]

Well, drop in a bunch of large, 2-3ft sections of drainpipe or similar. Feed them quite a bit, keep the water really clean, given them good current in the tank (something like 10x turnover, so 6000 gph in your 600 gallon tank). And save up some money for getting another few large tanks, as the babiess will need space to grow.

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Mats

[crkinney]

Out were you live a cattle tank 7ft round and 3 ft deep should be easy to come buy That should help your space problem .
On the other hand ,If I was you I would listen to these good ole boys that do this stuff all the time and don't waste your time with this type of fish.
Save up a few buck and start with a couple of neet ones to enjoy.leave the breeding to the pro's
Just note. there are so many common pleco's in florida they are unwanted.
good luck

[cichlidman16yearsold]

ok thanks for the advice. so does any one know where i can get cheep Bristlenose

[MatsP]

How cheap?

I would gladly give you some of mine if it wasn't for the rather complex logistics of moving fish some 5000 miles...

I'm pretty sure if you contact the local aquarium society in your area, you'll find someone who can help you! Or follow the aquabid link I posted earlier - I don't think $3 per fish is particularly cheap for a "private sell", but it's less than you'd pay for my babies in the local shop at similar size - about $6-7 each.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

where do you live mats p

[MatsP]

In England - which means that the Atlantic ocean as well as a load of land is between us.

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Mats

[cichlidman16yearsold]

so true