Commercial Breeding

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 22 Nov 2003, 01:28

Is there any commercial breeding of the colorful "L" number plecos going on in tanks or even in ponds?

I read in the Larry Vires book he was trying it at one time but didn't get very far.

I would tend to think it would be a great service to make these beautiful fish available to all at a reasonable price. And maybe take some pressure off their natural habitats by over harvesting.

Or is it not worth the breeders effort because they are too labor intensive?

magnum4 · Post by **magnum4** » 22 Nov 2003, 19:06

Or is it not worth the breeders effort because they are too labor intensive?

one of a few reasons, plus i doubt it would lower the price.

Post by **Barbie** » 22 Nov 2003, 20:24

I think it has as much to do with the growth rate of young plecos, as it does the actual spawning. Most of them take years to grow out to sexual maturity, much like raising calvus, as opposed to buying adult wilds. There is a large demand for adult wilds because people just do not have the patience to waste tank space on raising a fish that long to get results. Fry will take a minimum of 6 months to get to an age where they are marketable usually, where tropheus and the like are already an inch and a half or more at 2 months.

It's not going to stop me from trying to spawn at least a few types of ancistrus and hypancistrus. Who knows, maybe I'll even be successful enough at it that they'll help me support my addiction

*dreaming*

Barbie

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 22 Nov 2003, 22:27

I wouldn't think breeders would start out by growing out fry for their future breeding stock. First of all fry aren't available very often as opposed to wild caught stock. Wouldn't a potential "L" number breeder start out with wild caught fish to begin with as a calvus breeder would?

The article by Ingo on this site says it's not done because simply not many have ever tried it.

I remember when they first started commercially breeding Discus, some people retired after just a few years of doing it because they studied it out got ahead of the rat race. I doubt you could be that successful with L numbers but my point being, no one has even tried.

For example the Synodontis petricola. It's been in demand for many years and always has commanded a good price. For many years no one even attempted to breed them. A friend of mine right now has close to 9000 1" fry in his garage. But they are tricky and labor intensive but can be done.

I spoke with a big breeder once and suggested he breed bristlenose plecos. He thought I was crazy. We breed and wholesale fish as our only business and people ask me what fish I have made the most money breeding and to be honest it's the bristlenose pleco.

magnum4 · Post by **magnum4** » 22 Nov 2003, 23:34

I wouldn't think breeders would start out by growing out fry for their future breeding stock. First of all fry aren't available very often as opposed to wild caught stock. Wouldn't a potential "L" number breeder start out with wild caught fish to begin with as a calvus breeder would?

I think Barbie was talking about raising the young not inital stock, most of the more expensive species of L number take 18months to get to sellable size.

The article by Ingo on this site says it's not done because simply not many have ever tried it.

It has been experimented with but no one i've heard or know of is having great success in raising large numbers of L numbers quickly enough to make it commercialy viable.

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 22 Nov 2003, 23:43

It takes 18 months for an L number to reach one inch in size?

Let me just throw out this and see what you think. I'm far from an expert but willing to learn. I've been told the only dumb question is the one that's not asked

Put 2 trios of sexually mature L014 "Goldies" in a 220 gallon tank, give them all the correct water parameters, food and breeding caves etc. Wouldn't they spawn?

This is an expensive and beautiful fish. I read they have at least a couple hundred eggs per spawn.

Post by **Shane** » 23 Nov 2003, 00:13

Catfish lover,
You may certainly, with a lot of hard work, get a spawn. As Magnum pointed out, it just would not be a good commercial proposition. Maybe you would get 50 eggs and out of that 30-40 fry. Over the next year and a half you raise them to three inches for resale and are down to 20-30 fish. Let's figure an hour of work per week for 18 months. You have now invested around 78 hours of time and sale the fish for their wholesale price of US $7 dollars each (and we did not count electricity, water, medications, food, etc.) You have made $140 to $210 dollars. This works out to around $2.00 to $3.00 dollars per hour. Not a profitable business. Even if you sold direct to local pet stores for triple the wholesale price ($21 per fish) you still made $6.00 to $9.00 per hour. Hardly a profitable venture and after 6-12 months all the local stores have more L 14 than they know what to do with.
I know this story well as I actually tried it once with Ancistrus. For a couple of years I supplied nearly all the Ancistrus in the greater Washington DC area. I had a lot of fun and bred thousands of Ancistrus, but barely even really covered my own costs. I eventually sold all of the breeders to a Florida fish farm that is still breeding them and their descendents and selling the fry to this day.
That said, do not let the fact that it is not profitable stop you. At a minimum you will have lots of fun, ease pressures on wild stocks, and maybe even break even and pay for the costs of your hobby.
-Shane

Post by **Barbie** » 23 Nov 2003, 01:34

I think your idea with the goldies would be a viable one. They are one of the few rare plecos that are just as attractive once they've grown out, so they're regularly available on wholesale lists as adults. They should definitely have larger spawns. The bristlenose spawn more than once a month with good conditioning, even though I just keep a pair, not a trio, and feed only vegetable matter, no bloodworms or high protein food, except for an occasional bit of tetra color bits if I took too much when I started feeding, lol.

That's basically why I have purchased a few other types of ancistrus, along with the zebras and queen arabesques. They are something I feel like I might be successful with, once I get room to get them all set up for spawning, and the fry seem to be doing well living with the tropheus fry I'm raising out in larger tanks anyway *ducks before people throw things at her* Mind you, its just albino ancistrus at this point. I'm sure I'll be much more finicky with who lives with the more sensitive guys.

It's all just a pipe dream at this point though

Right now they're just pretty fish!

Barbie

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 23 Nov 2003, 01:50

Right now they're just pretty fish!

That says a lot. For many years they were just considered scavengers. But people are wising up a little over the years. Maybe that's one reason few have pursued breeding them. After all they are "only scavengers." IMO many are better looking than any freshwater fish and they aren't "just scavengers" anymore!

Breeding them is at this time pretty much virgin ground like the discus and petricola was at one time. Who knows, maybe in 10 or 20 years it will be common place to breed them in captivity.

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 23 Nov 2003, 09:11

To all:

What would be an attractive, easy to maintain and prolific spawning L number to start out with?

doctorzeb · Post by **doctorzeb** » 23 Nov 2003, 13:14

Hi Guys

I think that it can be viable in a commercial aspect if the labour intensive side is not classed as one of the inital overhead. For example, If I was to quite working a just try and breed my zebra's I would no doubt eventually have to sell my house, and tanks and live in a cardboard box. If however the labour is carried out as part of the everyday enjoyment of keeping fish, then I do believe it can be profitable.

I can spend on average 10 hours a week on my tanks, which I obviously don't expect to be paid for! ( I don't think my clients would appreciate it)

I am at present setting up a small fish room with 4 3ft tanks purely for breeding Hypancistrus zebras, which will cost me money, but if I wasn't doing it too breed them, and just for the fun of it, it would cost me even more, (ooh, I'll have one of those, and two of those, and oh that large L27 look good!)

Yes it takes about 18 months before I can actually sell them, but if i can get enough females spawning, (at present I have 3, possibley 4), then after 18 months I should be ready to sell a few.

Anyway, thats just my little pipe-dream! I just think that the with all that is happening with the Rio Xingu and other habitats, the more captive breeding the better!!!

rob

Post by **Shane** » 23 Nov 2003, 17:27

Catfishlover,
You will need to start with Ancistrus (if you have not already) as they are the key first stepping stone. Once you are pretty confident breeding them, and more importantly are consistantly raising the fry, you can certainly branch out. I wrote an article for Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine on this topic, "Spawning the Plecos: An Introduction," that appeared in the August 2002 issue. You may want to find a copy of the magazine.

Post by **Barbie** » 23 Nov 2003, 18:02

Alan you would probably have good luck with those L333s. They should have similar spawning needs to the L260, L66 types (blackworms, clean water, somewhat warmer, but hardness isn't as important for them, they spawn in 8.0 water for people). They are a newly "discovered" type, and seem to be in good demand from what I'm seeing on the boards. Sexing them would be similar also, although I'm not sure if you'd get lucky enough to have the females have white stomachs and the males have colored, (did I get that right yann?) like the queen arabesques. There are some great articles on the different types of Loris spawned in the Shane's World reproduction articles section, also the iCOSA Ancistrinae lecture is amazingly informative. I've read it quite a few times and I always seem to find new bits that I missed.

You know you have the "common" ancistrus figured out, but the starry nights and LDA08 Ancistrus claro would give you a bit more challenge, and interesting color, with a good demand for fry, also.

Just my two cents worth. Ask me again in a year when I see if I can manage to get any of my collection to do more than eat and look cute

Barbie

Catfish Lover · Post by **Catfish Lover** » 24 Nov 2003, 05:22

You will need to start with Ancistrus (if you have not already) as they are the key first stepping stone. Once you are pretty confident breeding them, and more importantly are consistantly raising the fry, you can certainly branch out

.

Shane,

Thanks, I appreciate the reply.

What Ancistrus would you recommend besides the common one?

I'll look for the TFH magazine.

aspen · Post by **aspen** » 27 Nov 2003, 05:27

zebras sell for 60 bucks (u.s.) in toronto. if you could sell the babies for 25-30 bucks and you could get a few pairs going, surely you could make some money that way. i would have a hard time spending that money on a catfish i bought from a lfs anyway. it would be a little tough to actually get them spawning, but once you did...

rick

Post by **Shane** » 27 Nov 2003, 05:53

Alan,
If you have already spawned some "common" Ancistrus (I say common in quotes because what is rare in one region is common in another) and are consistantly raising the majority of the fry, then I would encourage you to branch out. I do not mean to imply that you need to spawn five different Ancistrus spp. before branching out. The key is to become familiar with the breeding strategies and to get lots of fry raising under your belt. Many people on the Forum that are spawning loricariids will tell you that getting fry is the easy part. It is raising them that can take a long time to get down. This is especially true with Farlowella, Sturisoma and the like.
I would start with good old Ancistrus triradiatus. If you want to try a second Ancistrus go for one of the blackwater sp. (basically any Ancistrus that is black with white spots). After mastering Ancistrus, if you want to stay with Ancistrinae, then try Panaque maccus or one of the other small striped Panaque sp.
Too many people, although I can certainly understand why, try to put the cart before the horse. They want to start by breeding Hypancistrus zebra or some crazy L Number as their first fish. Although one in a thousand may get a lucky spawn, all the people I know and consider expert fish breeders worked their way up to that status.
-Shane