Baryancistrus xanthellus husbandry

[NewPlecoKeeper]

Hi everyone,

I am currently keeping 3 Baryancistru xanthellus in an 720l aquarium with Geopahgus argyrostictus and L048. I am currently feeding the tank a commercial feed for lumpfish (containing fish, krill and other shrimpy stuff) JBL novo pleco tabs and zucchini. Sometimes I add some various frozen food. The tank has an eheim prof 3, an eheim stream on 6500 and a stream on 9500. I try to run it about 30 degrees celcius.

I would love to hear what other people who have had xanthellus that have grown up and thrived have done? I am aiming for longevity for my fish and to one day breed them.

Marius

[Kirin]

I keep Baryancistrus xanthellus and Baryancistrus chrysolomus.
Difficult to work out size and very rusty on how to use forums but these are photos/videos of some of mine.
They are hard work I wont lie, more expensive. The big one is diet, they are algivores but maybe on the extreme end. They don't acclimatize well to captivity and do struggle to identify a lot of diets as food, so while vegetables can be useful you can easily notice the amount of undigested food from courgettes, sweet potatoes etc. They are algivores, specialist algivores almost like cows do with grass so constantly grazing. Vegetables really don't compare as algaes are very different evolutionarily and nutritionally. I feed mine Repashy soilent green with I think it's about 50% extra algaes or more added, 3 scoops soilent green to two scoops chlorela, spirulina I tend to limit as it seems to put fishes off eating it in higher volumes even if they eat cyanobacteria in the wild.
I do feed courgette as something additional at times but it doesn't mean I'll skip a feed. Mushrooms similarly but I think they could feed on fungi or organisms that maybe could be similar, still never skipping a feed.
These fishes are incredibly slow feeders and easily put off food with people walking past. At the end of the day like cows, rabbits etc. they are prey and in footage of them feeding they are far from hard to see by predators so they need to dash to cover. They don't compete with other fishes so the only cichlids I have with mine are the discus but angels could be a possibility. Many might say discus can't handle flow but in the wild they are found in reasonable currents.
Personally I wouldn't feed JBL, it's low in algaes but a lot also isn't digested and I find they are reluctant to feed on it. The food generally leads to a lot of waste.
If you are in the EU please say because I could maybe help identify alternatives. I need to spend some time to make a food I can tell people how to make that isn't just healthy but really willingly eaten, it's a project I've put back for years so need to buy all new ingredients and such since the last trials.

Obviously 28c or more, just the basic I think.

Other then that it's just the food. Mine aren't the best, I've worked hard on them and I want to upgrade the tanks but a bit limited on that as getting larger tanks up the stairs with my strength for now. I think another tank is a potential though to split them further up.

While it doesn't account for your setups these are boisterous and nasty fishes with age, even younger ones I've seen ram Panaqolus into caves or kill smaller Hypostominae. Some seem to manage like juvenile Parancistrus keep to tighter spaces then these fishes can reach. I can hear them move bogwood and caves around.
They also seem to have a preference to tunnels or larger caves rather then tighter.
I got the big female early November 2021 but I do have a slightly smaller Baryancistrus chrysolomus around December 2019 and another April 2020. The Baryancistrus xanthellus I think 2022 and 2021 but my memory. I don't think they have the best growth rate but I do have before and after photos.

[Kirin]

Ohhh these images do work.

[NewPlecoKeeper]

Thanks for the detailed respons Rebecca! I am located in Norway so Repashy is hard to get a hold of now since brexit. I have looked for a good solution for algae rich of the shelf food, but most only contain less than 5% algae with the rest of the «greens» being made up of vegetables and such.

I have had the same experience with spirulina, it does seem to make food less palatable for the fish. Thus making it totaly useless as they don’t eat it.

I have dabeled a bit with home made fishfood, but algae from freshwater sources is incredibly hard to find. Seaweed is ofcourse a good alternative, but might contain much sodium and iodine.

As for the temper of the fish they are propper assholes. They fair well with my 4 L048 and Scobinancistrus raonii also fared well. My L027 from Xingu was bullied however.

I have added some pictures of their tank as a reference.