Home-made pleco spawning caves

[bekateen]

Picked up three 8-ft bamboo poles yesterday (one for me, one for a friend, and one for whatever) to cut for large pleco caves. These are nice poles: Large diameter (2.0"-3.75" OD), not cracked, and lots of nodes (joints). These will make 8-10 caves each. First cave cut. 12" long x 3" ID. I'm pleased.

[Jobro]

I made some wooden pleco caves on my turning machine.
One with a removeable backend to have easy access to the fry.

Sorry for the holding the camera high instead of wide

[bekateen]

Beautiful!
Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

I think I got the hang of it, now

[TwoTankAmin]

@Jobro

Those wood caves look really nice. I wonder how they will react when submerged in terms of the back end removable cap maintaining its fit. I have seen things swell or shrink some in water and suddenly a cap wont remove easily or it will not stay in place. I am curious to know how your caves stand up over time.

The good part is when you drop a clay cave you usually end up with a 3-d cave puzzle. A wood cave will remain intact.

One Q, do you have to pre-soak them to make them sink or is the wood dense enough that it sinks dry?

[bekateen]

Those caves look spectacular, jobro. I hope they work. I too wonder how swelling will affect them. I'm curious, could you water-log them and then drill them? I imagine that makes drilling a lot more difficult, but maybe drilling "pre-swollen" wood can avoid the issue after the fact.

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

You guys are absolutely right. The wood I am using now is beech. It is pretty sturdy and hard and dense, but it will swim if not presoaked. I remembered how Eric talked about boiling his bamboo caves to make them sink and applied that to my wood caves.

After some boiling they will sink.

Now for the worse part, they do also like to deform a little. They turn out a little oval / egg-shaped. And I was pretty scared about the fittings on the ends after the wood swelling and deforming just like you guys anticipated. However, the ends still fit good. Meaning they won't come off by accident. And while not perfectly easy to remove by hand, it is quite doable with some turning /twisting /revolving the end piece while trying to pull it out.

I will do some more caves in different sizes, and will do pre and after cooking pictures for you to get an idea. The ones I made are allready in use and some of my plecos really seem to like them, especially the Ancistrus and Panaqolus species. Hope I will have a L397 spawn in one of them, soon.

Ofcourse it will take some more long time observations to tell if they are practical or more of a wasted effort

Here is a 30mm and 38mm inner diameter cave =)

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I like the idea of these.

......You guys are absolutely right. The wood I am using now is beech......

You could try Alder (Alnus glutinosa, A. incana, A. cordata), or Wych Elm (Ulmus glabra) wood if you can find them, they are timbers resistant to rotting and warping under water.

cheers Darrel

[Jobro]

Yeah, these would be great, darrel, but they seem pretty hard to come by. At least in bigger quantitys. It's usually easy to get thinner pieces of any wood, but I need a thickness of at least 40mm, which usually comes with quite some higher expanses.

On the other hand, while I used alderwood for tank decoration, I found it to be easy prey for plecos and it might not dissolve fast due to water and bacteria but due to their appetite. The wood seems pretty soft and therefore is a welcomed addition to any panaqolus diet.

I picked beech because it is widely available and prices are not cheap but affordable. Hoped the hardness of beech would help against rotting. but we will need to see how they fare long time.

[bekateen]

Thanks for the extra details.

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,

On the other hand, while I used alderwood for tank decoration, I found it to be easy prey for plecos and it might not dissolve fast due to water and bacteria but due to their appetite. The wood seems pretty soft and therefore is a welcomed addition to any panaqolus diet......

That is useful to know, it is quite a soft wood.

cheers Darrel

[panaque]

My

Panaqolus claustellifer

spawn in oak caves and it takes them about a year to chew through a 1cm thick wall. I also have beech and oak from my local woods in their tank and they REALLY like the beech. It disappears about three times as fast as the oak. So what I’m getting at is that you may need to experiment with wall thickness when you use these beech wood caves for Panaqolus.

[Jobro]

My

Panaqolus claustellifer

spawn in oak caves and it takes them about a year to chew through a 1cm thick wall. I also have beech and oak from my local woods in their tank and they REALLY like the beech. It disappears about three times as fast as the oak. So what I’m getting at is that you may need to experiment with wall thickness when you use these beech wood caves for Panaqolus.

This fast? Oh wow insane...

Oak comes at about double the price of beech from what I can find. Oak would have been my wood of choice, but costs led me to beech. Beech should be pretty much as hard as oak going by brinell hardness. *Phew* I hope these caves will hold longer than a year...

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Beech should be pretty much as hard as oak going by brinell hardness.

I wonder if it is the tannin content of the Oak (Quercus) wood that makes it less palatable than the Beech wood?

cheers Darrel

[Jobro]

I wonder if it is the tannin content of the Oak (Quercus) wood that makes it less palatable than the Beech wood?

Might be worth a scientific essay Subjects like these are so hard to investigate in private means

Here some shots of the process:
Tools used are wood lewis bits ("schlangenbohrer" in german)

For now I got 26, 28, 30, 36 and 40mm diamaters. Might add up 32, 34 and 38mm later.

The wood:

2x 100x4cm, 2x 100x5cm

My Lathe / Mill

Had to machine some special collets to hold the wood, even the hardest woods are still too soft...

The wood fits snuggly in there

[Jobro]

Cut some 40mm pieces. shorter and longer ones. Will make 26 and 28mm caves for my smaller species.

What looks like a little step in between these pictures is actually a lot of time consuming work. Just mounting the wood centric and making a center hole before actually drilling is taking up a lot of time. And still each cave will come out a little different. Machining metall seems to be way easier than wood

Next step is sanding the inside of the cave. Another time eater...

here I prepared some smaller pieces for the lids /caps.

Since every cave is different (meaning different in measured hole diameter as well as center of the hole - the pain and beauty of working with nature's materials) I have to fit every cap to it's cave. Meaning, a cap might not fit another cave. You can imagine the amount of manual labor put into this process.

[Jobro]

Machining a lid/cap:

When it fits, I will mount it in the cave.

And sand the cave with its lid/cap

finished cap and cave:

[Jobro]

Finished caves:

Tomorrow I will boil these and show you how they deform.

[Jobro]

A bunch of caves ready for boiling:

And here is where I made a fatal mistake...

All the caves fit so nicely into the pot and I was quite happy to not have to boil twice, that I forgot they would extend during the process...

They deformed each other badly and ended up stuck pretty hard in the pot
I managed to remove them. The caps /ends still fit good. Haha they look pretty natural now. And even more unique... But this should give you a glimpse of how they will expand during boiling.


On the good side. I added these caves yesterday and finally found my L204 male claiming a cave after not doing anything of the like for the last year... So I am pretty happy with these deformed wood caves for now

[bekateen]

On a whim, after reading a FB post about plecos breeding in a transparent glass ball, I tried to imagine other, more cave-like (in shape/proportion) glass objects that might substitute as breeding caves. I picked up these four green glass vases for $4USD total (for all 4, not each). They are 8"/20cm deep, 2.13"/5.4cm wide at their mouth, and 1.67"/4.3cm wide at their narrow neck.

Not knowing their past, they may have held plant fertilizers or worse (as a flower vase), so before use I washed each with gentle soap and hot water then I'm leaving them to soak overnight in clean rinse water.

I'm always searching for slightly larger than 1.5" diameter cave for the mustard spots. Let's try these caves with them.

Wishfully,
Eric

[bekateen]

Here's another good example of caves and tubes made out of oak, these by @MarcW: Re: Marc's fish room build.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

These two wooden pleco condos were made by Dan Griff (Dangriff), shared on FaceBook.

The single large block he made first, but he recognized that it wouldn't be convenient for removing eggs or fry, so before making the second block, he split the wood onto three parts, so that individual pieces can be removed more easily for egg/fry recovery.

Dan said the first one is going to a mate after the lockdown, the second one is still soaking in a bucket, neither have been in a tank yet. The holes are 32mm and 38mm and all 10-13cm deep. Dan plans to use the second set (the three-part block) for his L306 group as they love eating wood and hopefully he can get them to spawn in the wood caves.

Thank you, Dan, for sharing.

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

@bekateen

Eric- how did things work out with the 4 green glass caves? I have always wondered about using clear glass somehow, at least in the back end of a cave, to be able to see what was going on. However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning. Cave backs are pretty dark places. Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves? Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?

The only thing I have noticed re caves over the years is my zebras seemed to like slate, my 236 liked flattened type caves until they got too big for them and the rest did not care all that much. I also wonder how much of the preference for tight spaces is due to their defensive property. If it is a tight squeeze for a given pleco, it wont allow something larger in.

[bekateen]

Eric- how did things work out with the 4 green glass caves? I have always wondered about using clear glass somehow, at least in the back end of a cave, to be able to see what was going on. However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning. Cave backs are pretty dark places. Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves? Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?

Good question. For me, they were a failure. Not as far as I could tell because of the glass but because the mouths were too wide. None of my clay caves of the same diameter get used either. I need to find smaller glasses and try again.

Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves?

I can see in very well.

However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning.... Cave backs are pretty dark places. Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?

The only thing I have noticed re caves over the years is my zebras seemed to like slate, my 236 liked flattened type caves until they got too big for them and the rest did not care all that much. I also wonder how much of the preference for tight spaces is due to their defensive property. If it is a tight squeeze for a given pleco, it wont allow something larger in.

I think your observations and concerns are spot on. I can tell you my L052 like flat sided medium rectangular caves (I use the clay caves from plecocaves.com, here). The L052 ignore the round and D shaped caves. The only non-cave spawns the L052 have done were two which occured under cobblestones which were slightly off the tank floor.

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Great thread. Glad I found it. Last fall (2019) my younger 2 took a pottery class and I mentioned the idea of making my own caves. Their teacher gave me several pounds of food grade clay to use. I made 5 with different lengths and diameters and squished to make a "flat" side so that they won't roll. My male BN only uses one cave. I left an opening at both ends on one cave and it is only temporarily occupied.
I have been given 30-40lbs more of terra cota clay from a retired art teacher but it is dried out and needs to be softened. I tried to acquire her kiln but it was promised to someone else.

Spawning cave

Not used

Stack of caves

[fishguy1978]

Finished caves:

IMAG0490.jpg
IMAG0489.jpg
IMAG0488.jpg

Tomorrow I will boil these and show you how they deform.

Why drill all the way through? A forstner bit would leave a flat bottom/end. I'm considering doing this same thing except with tree branches.

[YSR50]

Why drill all the way through? A forstner bit would leave a flat bottom/end. I'm considering doing this same thing except with tree branches.

Easier to remove eggs/fry with a capped end

[Mart1996]

That's rock. Hypancistrus, Baryancistrus, Spectracanthicus, Parancistrus, Ancistrus and Squaliforma to name most but not all.

Jools

Interesting ....Rock

[fishguy1978]

I picked up an 1.5in (38mm) forstner bit and am going to drill into my madrona log in the 90g. I have 1in (25mm) holes and one 2in (50mm) hole currently. The plan is to enlarge the 1in holes. I have seen the male has taken occupancy of one already but I'm concerned that if the female is trapped she won't be able to exit.

[fishguy1978]

The male is guarding a clutch in one of the fresh 25mm holes. I added two alder wood caves to the p. Maccus tank that are 38mm diameter and maybe 10 cm deep. I think think the 38mm is too big for the p. maccus and will add some 25mm caves.