bristlenose tank mates
bristlenose tank mates
hey what fish would be ok with bristlenose fry and eggs? as in won't eat / bother them, i was just wondering what fish you guys keep with yours, my tanks soft and acidic with a good water flow. thanks
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MatsP
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Ok, so there's two questions in one.
What's OK with bristlenose eggs. If you don't remove the eggs, the father will look after the eggs until the fry is free-swimming. That will be about 14 days. Assuming there's nothing really agressive in the tank that will beat the bristlenose out of it's cave, you should be OK. In this sense, I'd say the biggest problem would be bigger pleco's and perhaps cichlids and synodontis catfish (and probably about a dozen other fish families that I either don't know about or couldn't think of immediately). But if they are normal community tank fish, you should be OK, even bigger ones should be OK, because the male will find a cave that is a snug fit, or he won't spawn.
The next problem is when you have 20-30 little 15mm long bristlenoses in the tank, trying to get them fed and not eaten by tank-mates. Here the selection is much smaller. Anything with a reasonably big mouth will probably eat the fry. I've got pearl- and zebra danios in my tank, and I haven't got any "disappearing fry" problem. But I wouldn't like to stick them with my rosy barbs. I think even the mollies in my fiances tank would be a problem. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to remove the fry, unless you set something up using a fry-net in the same tank. I'd recommend moving any bigger fish.
When I got the first spawn, I had a 4 inch goldfish in the tank, and we counted at least 15 fry when they first came out, but a couple of days later there was none left. Needless to say, the goldfish is now in a different tank.
I think I've got 26 fry at the moment, but this morning I wasn't able to do an accurate count (they're hiding better and moving around a lot). There were at least 20 tho'.
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Mats
What's OK with bristlenose eggs. If you don't remove the eggs, the father will look after the eggs until the fry is free-swimming. That will be about 14 days. Assuming there's nothing really agressive in the tank that will beat the bristlenose out of it's cave, you should be OK. In this sense, I'd say the biggest problem would be bigger pleco's and perhaps cichlids and synodontis catfish (and probably about a dozen other fish families that I either don't know about or couldn't think of immediately). But if they are normal community tank fish, you should be OK, even bigger ones should be OK, because the male will find a cave that is a snug fit, or he won't spawn.
The next problem is when you have 20-30 little 15mm long bristlenoses in the tank, trying to get them fed and not eaten by tank-mates. Here the selection is much smaller. Anything with a reasonably big mouth will probably eat the fry. I've got pearl- and zebra danios in my tank, and I haven't got any "disappearing fry" problem. But I wouldn't like to stick them with my rosy barbs. I think even the mollies in my fiances tank would be a problem. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to remove the fry, unless you set something up using a fry-net in the same tank. I'd recommend moving any bigger fish.
When I got the first spawn, I had a 4 inch goldfish in the tank, and we counted at least 15 fry when they first came out, but a couple of days later there was none left. Needless to say, the goldfish is now in a different tank.
I think I've got 26 fry at the moment, but this morning I wasn't able to do an accurate count (they're hiding better and moving around a lot). There were at least 20 tho'.
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Mats