Which plecos should I buy? And do L168's breed in captivity?

[Icedcold]

Hello..... I can't decide what I want to buy....

I'm stuck between the L398s, L201s, and L168s. I will be picking a group of 4-5 of each species for my 90g.

How hard are L398s, L201s, and L168s to breed in captivity?

Anyways... what are the best deals lol.

[Jobro]

L201 would be the go to choice for a beginner. Again, make sure your tank is suited for a pleco breeding group. you will need at least 6-7 caves and lots of shelter.

L398 are a little harder to keep, since they need wood in their diet and will poop a lot of wood like detritus in your tank, which is tough on the filtration. Panaqolus tanks are usually not the nicest looking ones.

L168 are super cool fish. Especially if you manage to get a healthy, good looking group. However, these are blackwater fish and need soft acidic water to trhrive and breed, again something that would not be suited for a beginner.

Before getting any new fish, I would recommend setting up the tank in a pleco friendly way and post some pictures beforehand to avoid problems. (Is this your Zebra pleco tank?)

[Icedcold]

No, a different tank. It's a community setup. I bulk ordered like 10 pleco caves last night from plecocaves.com

Anyways I do like L201s a lot. Although I don't be breeding zebras I do like them and would like them to be my hardest species.... (I keep all my tanks at tap PH, 8..

I like the L398s too and the L397s also. What are some recommendations for easy to breed plecos but not too easy or too hard. To give you a sight on how experienced I am I had L10as and common ancistrus species breed under cracks and crevices of my tanks.

[Jobro]

Hypancistrus Zebra

are not hard to breed.

Peckoltia Compta

could be a good choice as well. They look nice and the offspring is easy to sell.

[Icedcold]

Would it be worth looking for a female zebra or should I just keep my 2 males happy and breed another?

[bekateen]

Hypancistrus Zebra

are not hard to breed.

Peckoltia Compta

could be a good choice as well. They look nice and the offspring is easy to sell.

While I agree that both of these have been bred a lot, I would disagree with the idea that these will be easy for you (Icedcold) if your tank is going to be a planted community tank as you described in your other posts. Although there is one report of P. compta breeding at as low as 24C/75F, nearly all reports for both species (P. compta and H. zebra) are at or above 26C/79F, with most reports occurring well above 27C/81F.

Icedcold, if you really want to breed these plecos, I'd recommend you abandon the notion of a planted community tank and set up a tank with lots of rocks, caves and wood and run it with strong current between 27-30C/81-86F. For some species, you may also have to consider your water hardness (actually you'll probably need softness) and possibly pH.

My own personal preference is to select species based upon what I believe will do well in the water coming out of my own tap. So I'd ask you, what is your tapwater like? What is your ppm? pH? Use those numbers as a guide. My water is pretty hard (270-300ppm) and slightly alkaline (7.5). I've had no trouble breeding L397 and I've even gotten my Peckoltia compta to spawn in these conditions, but at 85F. By contrast, my L201 have attempted spawns on multiple occasions and yet the females never laid eggs. I've been advised to get more RO/DI water in the tank to lower hardness as a trigger. I've brought home 5 gal bottles of DI water to adjust the tank, but so far, no go. I may need to move the L201 to another tank with lower ppm and perhaps lower pH.

That's just my 2 cents.
Cheers, Eric

[Icedcold]

Don't know PPM. I know ammonia out of tap is 2 ppm and hardness is 8.8

My 90g currently has boesemani rainbows and a pair of angels. Currently set at 82F is planted and has 3 big prices of driftwood. And a specs open for caves. Will get a picture when I get home.

By strong current what do you mean? I have a cascade 2000 but the current is so much that water splashes out of the tank. I currently have a big sponge filter and a AQ HOB on the tank.

[Jobro]

While I agree that both of these have been bred a lot, I would disagree with the idea that these will be easy for you (Icedcold) if your tank is going to be a planted community tank as you described in your other posts.

Sorry, Eric, did not imply that he should go for breeding Zebras. But he said:

Although I don't be breeding zebras I do like them and would like them to be my hardest species

And I was only referring to that statement as they are just as easy as all the hypancistrus. But costs are too high to use zebras as guinea pigs. One should start with less expensive fish.

Which would answer his question about buying a Zebra female now to breed them: No, not yet.

[b.reder]

L398 are a little harder to keep, since they need wood in their diet and will poop a lot of wood like detritus in your tank, which is tough on the filtration. Panaqolus tanks are usually not the nicest looking ones.

O.K. now I understand why I have to change the filter pads for my Panaqolus so often.

[bekateen]

O.K. now I understand why I have to change the filter pads for my Panaqolus so often.

Welcome to the club, brother!

Does this site have a poop emoji? Apparently not This is the closest I can get:

[Icedcold]

I thought my bristlenoses poop alot 0.0

I have to do water changes twice a week or a pile of poop forms at the bottom .

[Fundulopanchax76]

Maybe if you put some snails, they will eat fish poop and make it in lower organic containing snails poop ? Which is good for water chemistry!

[dw1305]

Hi all,

O.K. now I understand why I have to change the filter pads for my Panaqolus so often.

If you can? You are much better syphoning out the woody debris and faeces before they get into the filter.

I have a large sponge pre-filter block on all my filter in-takes (same as the one on the power-head) to stop debris getting into the filter, basically you want all the mechanical filtration to occur outside of the filter body.


from "5 substrate ....viewtopic.php?t=42348)"

When I start the tanks I let the filter flow sort the substrate, and then I add some dead leaves etc and see where they end up at the point of lowest flow. I put a slate there and I syphon most of the debris from this when the tank is running. There is a fuller description in "Sand or gravel (https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=33623)".

Although they are unsightly in the tank the sawdust and faeces don't actually have much biodegradable material in them (it is mainly woody structural carbohydrates like lignin), so they don't contribute very much to the bioload. Wood eating (xylophagous) organisms have to process a lot of wood to get the extremely restricted nutrients from it. There is a much fuller discussion of this in "Wood for tanks...(https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=35930)" and "Nitrogen fixing bacteria ..... (https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... 14&t=42092)" and linked threads.

Personally I think "filter" is an unfortunate term for the receptacle that holds the microbial filtration organisms, because you only want oxygenated water and ammonia in the "filter", you don't want anything else, you don't want it acting as a mechanical filter.

The problem in the canister filter is that the bulky organic debris will rapidly clog the bio-media (particularly if it is fine sponge or floss), causing the water dwell time to increase within the filter. When this occurs the water in the filter can be de-oxygenated, with potentially disastrous effects on nitrification and ammonia levels.

cheers Darrel

[TwoTankAmin]

I doubt you will have to worry about pleco fry in a community tank with bows and angels. They will gladly keep a fry population in check by putting them on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In a planted tank you should get some survivors though. Your other option is to pull them first.

Therefore, I would go with the most prolific spawner among your options. I never knew I had spawning lf bn in my first community tank for a good year. I had angels but other fish besides bows. Once I started pulling the cave with dad, I discovered how many had been eaten. It will be more work finding Hypancistrus fry for lunch as they won't be out in the open sucking algae off things. But then most Hypans produce a lot fewer fry than Ancistrus.

If your ultimate goal with the plecos is spawning them and to have most live, I suggest you consider either a species tank or else only tankmates that will not eat pleco fry. I cannot stress this enough when pricey plecos like zebras are involved. If you opt to pull fry, you would need another tank for this anyway. So a species tank to begin with might make more sense.