Whiptail Pleco Id

[vince0]

Hello,

I was given a couple of these awhile back and didn't think much of it. I left them to their own thing in a 120g tank, and worried about many of my other fish. Earlier today, I noticed that the one was starting to look full in the belly, and decided to take an update picture for better ID as I thought they might have been in the mood to spawn. I think I hit the nail on the head, because a water change later, and the mail is hovering over eggs. I think maybe I should pull the pair from the community tank and maybe let them to their thing in a more private setting.

Anyone know what these are by the way, I never did find out from the person I got them from.

[vince0]

Here are some more shots from this morning.





I pulled the eggs last night, and as of right now (almost 18 hours later) they are still looking nice and green with no sign of fungus.

After plenty of online research, I am starting to thing that these are Rineloricaria Parva, or something closely related to that species

[Karsten S.]

i,

yes, this is Rineloricaria/Hemiloricaria parva.

Cheers,

[vince0]

i,

yes, this is Rineloricaria/Hemiloricaria parva.

Cheers,

Thanks, its nice to get confirmation.

This morning, I took a peak at the bucket and the eggs were still green and appeared in good order. I added 2L of warm chlorinated tap water to the hatching bucket and now I'm back to waiting.

In the meantime, here is a picture of the hatching bucket for anyone who many be interested.



I use a tetra submersible heater, pre-set to 78F. I get these from Walmart, and they are very inexpensive. However, they have done me well when it come to keeping tanks under 5g warm, when I don't need to adjust the temp.

I also use a simple airstone for water movement. At this point, the bucket doesn't need to be cycled. The fry (if they hatch) are removed either right away, or near the time they use up their yolk sac. For this set up, the air flow is quite high, so as to stimulate the parent "fanning" the eggs.

[Narwhal72]

Good luck raising the fry. They are far more difficult to raise than other pleco fry.

They don't seem to move much and have a hard time feeding. I have tried multiple times and not had any luck getting them past 30-60 days.

My most successful attempts have been to put them into a smaller container and feed multiple times per day. Add some ramshorn snails to help keep the container clean.

I hopefully will get another shot at them soon and will be trying Repashy foods this time.

Andy

[vince0]

Thanks for the tips Andy, I will put those to good use!

Update!

In my excitement to get the eggs out, I did something I don't typically do. I used water from the parents' tank. Usually, I use chlorinated tap water when incubating eggs and the reason is that the chlorine kills off any harmful bacteria while not causing any harm to the eggs.

When I woke up this morning, the water in the bucket was murky. I believe that some sort of bacterial bloom happened, and I half expected to see all the eggs gone. I dropped the water level, and replaced with tap water. The eggs seemd to be fine.

I got home tonight and once again, the water in the bucket was murky. I did another water change, this time I dropped almost all the water out of the bucket, and replaced with almost all lukewarm chlorinated tap water. When I looked at the eggs after the water change, they seemed to changing colour and you can almost make out the faint outline of a fish overtop of the yolk sac.

I sure hope they hatch soon!

[vince0]

Here is a horrible picture of the eggs in the bucket. The assassin snail shell is a good reference point for size. There are now clearly light brown eggs, and green eggs. I'm starting to thing that the light brown eggs are the fertilized ones. I can see more stuff inside than the undeveloped green eggs.

Also, it seems the water changes yesterday worked, the water was crystal clear this morning when I checked the bucket.

[vince0]

I came home tonight and all the unfertilized "green" eggs had fungused over. I did a quick removal of the "bad" eggs and added some more chlorinated water. The fry are really evident when I look at them close. I'm half tempted to removed another egg just to take close up picture.

[bekateen]

Usually, I use chlorinated tap water when incubating eggs and the reason is that the chlorine kills off any harmful bacteria while not causing any harm to the eggs.

Here's my inexperience with eggs, combined with an historical reluctance to experiment with water quality. I would have thought that chlorinated water would harm the eggs, but you're saying it doesn't. Is this a widely accepted opinion among fish breeders? Do a lot of the people on this website who frequently breed cats trust chlorinated water with eggs? If so, do you have to watch closely and change out the water to dechlorinated water the moment the eggs hatch? I thought that chlorination (esp with chloramines, but chlorine too) would be particularly bad for fry.

[vince0]

I do not have experience with chloramine. The city I live in only use chlorine, and in very low amounts. The chlorine will off-gas within a couple hours if well aerated so its usually not a concern as long as I don't change water right before they hatch. Once the fry hatch, I use aged water from the parents tank. The chlorine will not harm the eggs, I have tried this with killifish, rainbowfish, barbs, cichlids and even cories with great success.

[bekateen]

Thanks for the tip. Alas, my town uses chloramine, which doesn't dissipate rapidly; aged tap water still has chloramine in it for a long while, or so I'm told. The only way I've ever learned to eliminate chloramines is to neutralize them chemically.