My new L397s and Peckoltia compta, imported from the UK to California

[bekateen]

Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy! After a big (90%) water change today, I found a dad on wigglers!

Just one year and 3 weeks after getting them home. Yay!

Better photos and video to follow.

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

Great news

[bekateen]

Thank you

[bekateen]

First baby video :

Direct link to YouTube video: Panaqolus sp. L397 on wigglers

[bekateen]

I found two wigglers swimming free in the 75 gal tank, so I took all the remaining caved fry from dad ahead of schedule. I could not catch the fry loose in the tank, but I recovered 36 fry in the cave. I transferred these 36 (EDIT: On later count, it worked out to 38 fry transferred to the basket) to a fry basket setup as follows:

I'm using the same setup for these L397 as I used for

Panaqolus maccus

: A net-sided basket suspended at water-level in parents' tank, in close proximity to a strong water current (in this case, in front of the outflow from an Aqueon QuietFlow 75 HOB filter). To the basket I added a few dry oak leaves, some pre-soaked and some dry twigs and pieces of wood, a large amount of mulm from the parents' filter intake (hopefully providing beneficial digestive bacteria for the fry as they start to eat), and some shredded bits of raw sweet potato. The wigglers still have lots of yolk, but in my experience with P. maccus I found the wigglers started chewing on things long before they finished their yolk.

Cheers, Eric

Direct link to YouTube video: Panaqolus sp. L397 wigglers in fry basket

[YSR50]

That was fast, Congrats!

Very jealous. Does the line start here for "adoption"?

[bekateen]

Thanks, YSR50!

Does the line start here for "adoption"?

Ha! You can imagine how many requests I've received... not just today, but going back to the day I brought the fish to the USA!

First things first:

1. I have to raise them successfully. (yeah, there's always that)
2. Once the fish are big enough, I need to consult with USFWS. My permit to import was under the terms that I not sell, barter, trade any fish I obtained OR THEIR OFFSPRING for profit. Given that realistically there won't be any profit by the time I raise them to size (feeding them fresh veggies and a mix of mussels, clams, and shrimp, all human-food-grade), I just need to work out with USFW what they will allow me to do. I appreciated and respected the USFWS people who worked with me, very patiently, to bring these fish stateside. I want to honor my agreement with them.
3. Once sales methods are arranged, I have to go down the list of people whom I've promised fish to, going back to July 2016.
4. THEN AND ONLY THEN can I start selling publicly. When fish are available, I will be posting it here. Stay active on this site if you want to get a chance.

Cheers, Eric

[Linus_Cello]

Congrats! Looking forward to your hearing about your experience raising the fry.

[nabulus]

Congrats Eric!
(BUT my eyes have been on your 134 all the time...)

[nabulus]

Hmm.. so you offer L397 a lot of meaty food too? I thought that they tend to get bloated by that?

[bekateen]

Congrats! Looking forward to your hearing about your experience raising the fry.

Thanks, and will do. I'm hoping that they are about like P. maccus. Let's see how many I can get to size.

Hmm.. so you offer L397 a lot of meaty food too? I thought that they tend to get bloated by that?

All in moderation. They always have access to wood. I give them fresh sweet potato about every 3-4 days, and I leave it in the tank for at least two days before removing leftovers. So they usually go 2 days without sweet potato. Once a week, sometimes less, I put boiled clams, mussels or shrimp in the tank. They eat all vigorously. If you give them live black worms, they will scarf that too. I've never observed bloat in any of my plecos, although some of my maccus have so gotten fat that I feared they were bloated (but they weren't... they went on to lay eggs later).

Congrats Eric!
(BUT my eyes have been on your 134 all the time...)

Thanks. And now that the L397 have spawned, I too have my eyes on the compta... and on the albomaculatus in same tank. But the compta are still too small I think.

Wish us luck!

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

Thanks. And now that the L397 have spawned, I too have my eyes on the compta... and on the albomaculatus in same tank. But the compta are still too small I think.

Wish us luck!

Cheers, Eric

Congrats Eric!

what size are the Compta?

[bekateen]

Congrats Eric!

what size are the Compta?

Thanks Johannes. The compta are about 3" TL.

Cheers, Eric

[Fundulopanchax76]

Congratulations !

[pleco_breeder]

Thanks, YSR50!

Does the line start here for "adoption"?

Ha! You can imagine how many requests I've received... not just today, but going back to the day I brought the fish to the USA!

First things first:

1. I have to raise them successfully. (yeah, there's always that)
2. Once the fish are big enough, I need to consult with USFWS. My permit to import was under the terms that I not sell, barter, trade any fish I obtained OR THEIR OFFSPRING for profit. Given that realistically there won't be any profit by the time I raise them to size (feeding them fresh veggies and a mix of mussels, clams, and shrimp, all human-food-grade), I just need to work out with USFW what they will allow me to do. I appreciated and respected the USFWS people who worked with me, very patiently, to bring these fish stateside. I want to honor my agreement with them.
3. Once sales methods are arranged, I have to go down the list of people whom I've promised fish to, going back to July 2016.
4. THEN AND ONLY THEN can I start selling publicly. When fish are available, I will be posting it here. Stay active on this site if you want to get a chance.

Cheers, Eric

Just a question, but have you considered that you may need to consider selling some "VERY expensive bagged water" with a free fish included as a bonus?

[bekateen]

Congratulations !

Thank you

Just a question, but have you considered that you may need to consider selling some "VERY expensive bagged water" with a free fish included as a bonus?

[Jools]

Great effort - I had missed this until now!

Jools

[Fundulopanchax76]

Why are these so strange laws in USA ? How can you buy something and then not to have right to sell it ?! Maybe you have to have registered firm for that ?

[bekateen]

Good question! The laws may sound strange, but they aren't. The USA law states that if people are going to import fish for profit, they have to have a license to do it (which costs money) and they have to pay certain import fees and wildlife inspection fees (which cost more money).

However, if you a just a citizen who wants to import a pet, you do not need to have a license and you do not need to pay the import fees. So if I say the fish are my pets (which they are obviously), but then sell them after returning to the USA, then I am a seller and should have paid for an import license and paid the import fees.

I don't think the law is meant to completely ban me from ever selling the fish or their juvies, because the law says I can't sell, barter, trade, or otherwise exchange them for profit, which is what businesses do. I just have to figure out how the law defines "for profit" as opposed to "not for profit."

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

Thanks Johannes. The compta are about 3" TL.

Cheers, Eric

Sounds big enough to me

[bekateen]

Meanwhile, dad has trapped another lady. ... But after 12 hours trapping, he let her go without laying eggs. Hopefully they'll try again when she's ready.

[bekateen]

Juvies are about 10 days old. I lost one baby each day on days 1, 2, and 3, but since then I haven't lost any more. After recounting the fry, I think there are 35 left, so I undercounted originally.

In my experience, we are entering the danger time: The fry have pretty much consumed their yolk (or nearly so) and they are transitioning to solid food. With

Panaqolus maccus

, this is when I experienced my highest mortality (not a lot, but more than at other ages).

First foods include shredded raw sweet potato, Cobalt Spirulina Flakes, Fluval Pleco Bites (crushed), freeze-dried black worms (water-saturated to sink), plus wood, oak leaves, and more mulm from parent tank.

Cheers, Eric

Direct link to YouTube video: Panaqolus L397 (Alenquer tiger pleco) 10 day old juveniles

[Fundulopanchax76]

So if you keep L 397 and L 134 in the same tank is it sure that fry are not hybrids ?

[bekateen]

They are different genera Panaqolus and Peckoltia, so the probability is very low.

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

L134 is such an oddball, I would be quite surprised if they were to hybridisize with any of the other peckoltias out there.

Eric, your L397 look quite big for 10 days olds! Very nice. I am pretty envious you got a hand for the panaqolus I want some panaqolus spawns as well!!!

I can really recommend chlorella powder for fry food. Supplemented with decapsulated Artemia eggs (eggs without shells). I just put some water in a tiny cup, add some chlorella + artemia eggs and mix it up with the end of a spoon. I then pour it into the rearing box and it covers the ground where the fry will eat it. On L134 and L183 fry this gives me an almost 100% survival rate. And my latest L260 and H. Contradens fry seem to do fine on it as well until now (I mix clorella and artemia 50:50 for the hypans and more like 70:30 on Ancistrus and Peckoltia). So if you experience loses during the transition phase, this might be worth a try in the future. With the green color of the chlorella, it is also very easy to track, whether the fry eats or not. Green bellies everywhere

edit: I also tried spirulina powder but it's really a mess once it get's in contact with water (gets really slimy and clumpy)... I don't like it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[bekateen]

Eric, your L397 look quite big for 10 days olds! Very nice....

I can really recommend chlorella powder for fry food. Supplemented with decapsulated Artemia eggs (eggs without shells). I just put some water in a tiny cup, add some chlorella + artemia eggs and mix it up with the end of a spoon. I then pour it into the rearing box and it covers the ground where the fry will eat it. On L134 and L183 fry this gives me an almost 100% survival rate. And my latest L260 and H. Contradens fry seem to do fine on it as well until now (I mix clorella and artemia 50:50 for the hypans and more like 70:30 on Ancistrus and Peckoltia). So if you experience loses during the transition phase, this might be worth a try in the future. With the green color of the chlorella, it is also very easy to track, whether the fry eats or not. Green bellies everywhere

edit: I also tried spirulina powder but it's really a mess once it get's in contact with water (gets really slimy and clumpy)... I don't like it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Thanks for the feeding tips. I'll keep them in mind if I have any troubles. Right now I put a lot of spirulina flakes and shredded sweet potato in one day, it sits there most of the day, then it's gone the next morning. So I hope they are okay on current foods.

As for age of the fry, yes it is an estimate because I never saw them as eggs. But based on how much yolk they had the day I found them, and how far back (in time) I can go where I was sure the male did not have eggs, these babies can't exceed 12 days old at most (and 9 days at least). I think 10 days is about right because their size is consistent with the SL reports in the L397 BLOGs.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Look who decided to cling onto me when I was vacuuming their basket this evening.

[bekateen]

And today there is this!

Last night same dad was trapping a female in same cave as first spawn. He was still trapping this morning. And when I got home from work I found new eggs! Yeah!

I estimate there was about 26 days between the two spawns.

Cheers, Eric

[nabulus]

wow! they are really productive! Congrats!!!!

[bekateen]

Growth update on the first clutch of fry.

Panaqolus L397 (Alenquer tiger pleco) 3 weeks old