I'm hoping that someone may shed some light on my situation. I have a trio of L338's, and they are approximately two years old. When I looked in the Cat-eLog information, it stated that breeding was "unreported", so that is part of the reason that I have these questions. Also, when I searched this forum for L338 listings, I saw various posts, but I didn't see anyone discussing spawning/breeding.
These fish have spawned twice at my home, but the eggs did not hatch. I am to blame for at least one of the failures.
Here is what happened:The first time, I was planning to move the fish to another room. I was new at breeding Ancistrus at the time, so I carelessly removed the cave, without doing any investigation beforehand. Halfway through the move, I discovered that there were eggs in the cave. The male HAD been sitting in the cave, waving his fins before I started the relocation, but again, I was REALLY NEW at this venture. The next day, those eggs were gone. I don't know if the male ate them, if he kicked them out of the cave, or what happened.
The second time, I got into a "pickle" when I was setting up my new fish room. I was short on tank space, so I temporarily put two other pair of Ancistrus in the tank with the L338 trio. (It was a larger tank, so I thought I could get away with it.) A few days later, when I came to separate them and take them to their new homes, I discovered that all three males were sitting on eggs, including the L338 male. Not knowing what else to do, I left all of the fish in there, fed them generously, and did sufficient water changes. A few days later, all three clutches of eggs were gone, and I don't know what happened to them.
Since that time I've raised many spawns, and I'm very careful to avoid ruining my fish's spawning efforts. The L338's have not spawned again, to the best of my knowledge. I live in Wisconsin, U.S.A., and we are just coming out of our long winter season. I don't know if these fish avoid spawning during the winter.
SO HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS:
1) That page says that breeding is unreported, but do you actually know of any successful, captive spawns?
2) If I hadn't goofed up in those instances, is it likely that I would have ended up with fry, or are the L338's KNOWN FOR spawning, but not completing the job?
3) If these fish do spawn in captivity, are they known for preferring certain times of the year for doing so?
Thank you. I'd appreciate any information. We are about to sell our house and relocate, so I have to cut down from 34 tanks, to about 5. This means that I'll have to make several decisions about which species to keep, and which to let go. Any L338 information will help me to decide. Cheers, everyone.
All I can say is that mine look just like the one that is listed as L338, in the catalogue on this site. The seller did not provide much information, and when I tried to contact him, it seemed that he was no longer in business.