Woo Hoo - They finally did it! - Again! And Again!

[Owch]

About 10 months ago I purchased a proven breeding pair of Bristle noses, they were spawninig every 5 weeks, regular as clock work.

Well, they have finally done it in their new home, its taken 10 months, but I new they still had it in them. Im so excited

Right, question time

To get them to spawn I let the tank get dirty by not taking out sludge and poop, just a 25% water change every other day (its a small 18"x12"x12", 35-40 litre tank @ 28 celcius)then I did a 25% water change with cold water (20 celcius) with the heater off. I set the heater to 24 celcius and then left it, it happened about 2 days later. I also popped a plant pot filter in to help contain some of the poop and boost the biofilter.

That was 2 days ago, 27th July 2005.

Now, what do I do next? Keep the temps the same? What water changes should I do?

I have read that the eggs will hatch in 2-3 days, but is that temperature dependant? I also have some egg laging baby food, is that OK to start them off? What to feed them next? When will they start on cucumber?

Im all excited.

Anyway, I think thats it

Thanks in advance

Tom, soon to be a proud new father.

[kev]

congrat's on your new kid's . Did you get them from a shop or someone's colection? if they where from someone's collection and as you say breeding every 5 week's did he/she raise any fry? they might be able to help allthough here is a few people on this forum that have bred them.

Kev

[FuglyDragon]

Well with my own; If I have taken them out of the cave and added them to a fry tank I wait till the eggsack has completely gone and then start feeding them on powdered flake food (which I get by shakeing the crud out of a small tub of JBL flake then wipeing my finger around the inside of the tub, the small particles stick to my finger then I mix them with some water and add to my fry tank) I also mash up algae wafers with the back of a teaspoon untill its a powdered mess and add some of that. I syphon out any uneaten food with a turkey baster before adding more which I do 3 or 4 times a day. I also encourage as much algae growth in the tank as possible. - When I say fry tank I mean one of those mesh hang on things that floats in the main tank.

Alternatively I just leave them in the main tank with the parents and they seem to do reasonably well on the leftovers left behind by the parents, again algae in the tank helps.

Good Luck with them

[Fish Soup]

I keep the fry with the adults. When they get to an inch or so I move them to a 55 until they are big enough to sell. The breeding tank is bare bottom. That's very important since you will be feeding often.

I feed 3 or 4 times a day. Mostly crushed flake. But for the first two weeks one feeding a day is live baby brine shrimp. I also feed fresh veggies (almost nightly) and seafood (once a week) to the adults, so it's always in there for the fry too. Most start grazing on the natural foods as soon as they are free swimming. Mine love zuchinni and mangos. But they swarm over any seafood! Just limit it to once or twice a week. More and they can bloat. Mine do not seem to like cucumber as much as zuchinni. I would not feed the fry food. Crushed flake, BBS and some natural foods work very well.

Water changes are done every other day, 50% at a shot. Without fail. The kids of all species make a mess quickly! You got to stay on top of it.

Good luck with them, but be warned. Once they start, they do not stop. I'll be separtation mine shortly.

Don

[Alan_au]

For one the tank is a little small,,,,,just think, with a reasonable spawn of B/N you will have 50 + fish in that tank!!!

Secondly, 28C is just a bit warm for B/N to breed!! little wonder it took them so long. Mine spawn regularly between 18 and 24 C ( I have 4 colonies of 60 breeding females )

Alan.

[MatsP]

Tom,

Congratulations.

Temperature of 28'C is probably why they weren't spawning before. I don't know where I read it just recently, but they stop spawning if the temp goes too high... Could be that they think it's start of summer, or that the oxygen content in the water goes too high.

I've sucessfully spawned at 22'C and 26'C. Keeping it at 24'C will probably be "perfect".

I just leave the "dad" to look after the eggs and fry until he lets them go. My best guess is that it will take about 10-14 days before you see the fry coming out into the tank.

Once the fry turns up, you need to feed them with some soft vegetable, such as blanched courgette(zucchini), cabbage (stalks from broccoli works fine), peas, etc, etc. Don't feed too much at once, but make sure there's something for them to eat in the tank at all times. When they are a week or two, you could start giving them algae wafers every other day or so.

--
Mats

[Dermogenys]

Listen, you don't need to change temp. You need to put the oxygen stone near the cave, becouse eggs need aeration. I had the same situation in my tank. I went on a holliday and I was gone for 12 days. When I came back I found fully developped mini ancistrusses. Their yolk sacs were gone and 50 of them were still in a cave, while 10 more were swimming around. I think that you shouldn't move them because you got a expirienced male and he would do good job. I have a outter filter (it's not in a tank, and working with bubbles), and I put fry in a floating PVC guppy breeding tank with holes so the tube wit clean water goes in the floating tank and dirt goes in the main tank through holes. That way the fry is always aerated and in clean water.
I would like you to let me know how much fry will be born and what is the lenght of the female.
My female is 10cm.
Regarding the first food, maybe you can find spirolina tabbs, the sunking ones. Some cutted (1-2mm) Tubifex worms would do too. Or as backup plan you can give them some stone or some object that has alge on it from a tank without alge eaters.
Important: get all fish capable of eating 1cm fry out of the tank. Snails can eat eggs too. The parents can stay.
(I think you shold separate male and female untill she's ready for another breeding because I had amazing two spawnings with diferent females the day after I put them in the males tank. First on 10th July, second on 19th July - Good male!

[MatsP]

Dermogenys,

Are you suggesting that a temperature of 28'C is your recommendation for breeding Ancistrus?

I would say that it's POSSIBLE to get them to breed at that temperature, but I wouldn't think it's the BEST temperature for them. Between 20 and 26'C would be my personal recommendation from my experiences.

Obviously, if the tank has more than the Ancistrus in it, other inhabitants should be considered when setting the temperature, but for Ancistrus on their own, no more than 26'C would be a good choice.

Of course, if what you meant was that you don't need to "trigger" with a temperature drop, that's probably also true. It may help them get started, however. Once they are breeding, it shouldn't need any temperature drop to get the next brood, as long as the conditions are good.

The father will ensure that the eggs are well oxygenated in the cave, by flapping the fins and constantly moving the water over the eggs. Air-stone is only necessary if you haven't got the male doing the job.

The advice on removing any "fish eaters" out of the tank is good. I had a gold-fish in my tank when I had the first spawn. It pretty quickly munched all of the babies

--
Mats

[Owch]

Well its happened, having a good look at the BN tank yesterday and saw an orange blob on the glass next to the cave, upon closer inspection I saw eyes and a tils flicking happily away. By late afternoon there were 2 bombing round the tank and have now taken residency on the heater.

Daddy is still guarding the cave, even though theres no-one in the tank other than Mummy. He's fanning the remaing cave dwellers all the time and neither Mum or Dad have eaten anything for 2 days. Well, anything I have put in for them

Anyhow, time to feed my babies (the kids not the fish). I'll keep you all posted.

[Dermogenys]

MatsP,
I didn't think that he should keep 28C, although mine spawned on that one, I said that he should't change the spawnig temp. (which was 24C as I understood), 'cause eggs are temp.change-sensitive. I wasn't able to afect mine 28C 'cause the heater was off. It's like I live in desert (35C yesterday)
MatsP, can you tell me the lenght of your female(s) and the number of born fry on yours last spawnings? I wanna do some calculations. Thanks.
By the way, I have 1 albino male and 2 females, 1 albino and 1 black. On the white/black combination the outcome was about 25 albino and round 28 black ones. I have 5 Dermogenys in that tank and they are extreme surface feeders but still they were suspiciously fat when I returned from Kushadasi So maybe you can tell me wether fry with jolk sac climb up to the 1-2cm from surface or not?

[MatsP]

I get about 40 fry in a spawn from a female that is 3.5-4" long (total length, SL around 3/4" shorter).

The fry will probably not go very far from the bottom with egg-sack, but I've certainly seen some fry out two days before the last ones, so if you have some "early starters", they may have been up at the surface. Certainly, I see fry sitting at the top of the tank sometimes...

--
Mats

[Owch]

The 4 fry that have escaped Dad's cave are sat at the water line swimming around in the bubbles from the plant pot filter!

[Dermogenys]

12 days after the spawning I saw 4-5 youngsters in the tank. Their stomac was flat, but still, when I moved the cave I found 50 more. Male was still guarding them. So maybe you should start throwing some food at the cave entrance in 4-5 days.

Is anybody in possesion of longfin (albino or black) Ancistrus? In my contry they are nowhere to be found. Im considering importing couple of them.

[Owch]

12 days after the spawning and the fry are still hiding with Dad in the cave (I sneeked a look and there must be somewhere between 50 + 100 fry). There are still a few nippers bombing around the tank. All fry are now brown.

I am a little concerned about Mum and Dad, as Mum has only nibbled on a piece of Cucumber and Dad hasn't eaten anything I have put in the tank at all. Ive tried various types of pleco wafer, cuc, peas, lettuce... But nothing, any ideas.

Cheers

Tom

[MatsP]

12 days after the spawning and the fry are still hiding with Dad in the cave (I sneeked a look and there must be somewhere between 50 + 100 fry). There are still a few nippers bombing around the tank. All fry are now brown.

I am a little concerned about Mum and Dad, as Mum has only nibbled on a piece of Cucumber and Dad ahsnt eaten anything I have put in the tank at all. Ive tried various types of pl*co wafer, cuc, peas, lettuce... But nothing, any ideas.

Cheers

Tom

Dad will come out to eat when the babies leave the cave. If a few "early starters" have left the cave that doesn't count, you need the whole brood out.

--
Mats

[Dermogenys]

I would like to know how big is your ancistrus female?

[Owch]

Female is 4.5"
Male is 5.5"

Ill post some pictures!


Another question, is it advisable to remove the babies to another tank, and will this encourage to Mum and Dad to spawn again? Its only been a couple of weeks and Mummy looks like she has a bun in the oven already.

[MatsP]

They will spawn whether the babies are in the tank or not. More of a problem would be if the babies are in the tank is the polution caused by the babies (they are poo-machines!).

But if the tank is big enough, it should be fine to have several spawns all together. The father's interest in the young stops when they are swimming around by themselves, so he's ready for another go as soon as the fry are out. It would take mine about two weeks before he'd be on eggs again...

--
Mats

[Owch]

Some (very poor - sorry) pictures:

Mummy
Daddy
Daddys cave and a baby

The cave is made out of plastic metal. Its an epoxy compound that I use at work to put temporary repairs on chemical reaction vessels. It sets rock hard and is inert (in water!) when cured.

[Owch]

Tey are at it again

15th October 2005 @ 15:30 GMT, Daddy frantically fanning a big orange pile of eggs.

The wierd thing is, last week Mum and Dad were in my discus tank @ 29*C, to stop them spawning while I grew the last spawn on a bit.

I moved them back to the tank I had been growing to babys on in (I had moved the babies earlier). The temp in here was at 28*C, 2 days after I put M + D back in I slowly dropped the temp to 26*C over 24 hours, then did a water change with 20*C water.

3 days later (temp at 24*C) nothing, so I put the temp up to 26*C over 24 hours, this was on the 12th.

Today I went to do another cold water change and low and behold......EGGS.

Spawning on a reverse dry - wet season.

Ah well, thats nature!

Ill keep you posted on there progress over the next few weeks.

PS, the previous batch has 47 survivors (around 55 to start with), the biggest of these is 1.5", the smallest is 3/4". Most are bigger than 1.0".

[MatsP]

That sounds about right, they spawn when the temperature is dropped after a period of warmer temps.

But also remember that these fish will spawn under variable conditions. Dropping the temp a few degrees with water change is certainly a known trigger. Someone mentioned this will also trigger multiple females to spawn at the same time (which helps preventing the male from being starved due to too long time without food).

I'm not sure if the "messing about" with the temperature over the past week was really necessary. I would probably think you'd get exactly the same results from just putting them back into the tank, dropping to 25'C (+/- a bit), and one or two cold water changes. Rather than changing the temp up and down. Remember, even if the female is gravid, it may not be a good thing (evolutionary) to spawn at the first hint of rainy season, but if it takes a week or so of rainy season to get "ready to spawn", it's actually more likely that they don't accidentally spawn on an early rain before the real wet-season starts...

--
Mats

[Barbie]

I rarely need to stimulate most of the ancistrus in my house to spawn. If I notice I haven't had a spawn in a few months, I will, but it's definitely not something that they "require", especially not some of my tank raised stock. It seems once you get the cycle started, the male is going to actively try to find a mate as often as he can, whether you want him to or not! Congrats Owch!

Barbie

[Owch]

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll just leave well alone in the future and see what they can do. They seem to be able to cope without my interfering
If they are going to spawn this regularly, how should I grow them on.

At the moment the 1st spawn is growing out in my L333 river tank, and they seem to be loving the flow. But I cant keep putting 40-50 fry in here every few weeks. How do the profesionals manage to keep up. (I may be able to get 'The Boss' to agree to another tank, but I'd be pushing it a bit if its any bigger 18"x12"x12").

Cheers

Tom.

[MatsP]

I split mine up to prevent them from spawning. [Unfortunately, I haven't got ENOUGH tanks, so the female that I moved to my big tank, decides to spawn with one of her sons... Oh well, the Geophagus and other fish will get some different live-food in the next week or so... ]

The growout tank should be as big as possible. If you can't cope with the babies, just split them up...

--
Mats

[Zebrapl3co]

I keep my pair of common BN pleco with my zebra pleco and they have been spawning in 30C with no problem. They had 8 brood, before I nuke the tank and finally to my relief they stop doing it. I still see signs of matting marks on the female, but no more fry though. So I don't think temperature alone is the triggering factor, there are other things that will trigger them to spawn.

[Owch]

I will stop them/split them up before I cant cope with the numbers, I was just wondering how other people manage to keep up as some poeple breed them to sell.

I'm doing it more out of interest than to make money (the scientific mind and all that).

[MatsP]

Anyone who's breeding them "professionally" would have one or two fairly big tanks to grow them out in, say 250 liter or so, that can take a hundred or more 1"/2.5cm fish.

--
Mats

[Owch]

2 250 litre tanks, hmmmm.....

The 'Big Bad I Said NO', says no! She just doesn't understand!

Ah well, Ill have to stop Mummy and Daddy BN enjoying themselves soon.

[Owch]

This morning there are two fry bombing around the tank, frantically trying to stay upright in the current created by Mummy swimming around.

Is it usual for fry to hatch in less than 3 days? Tank temp = 26*C.

[Owch]

Well, less than 3 weeks and they are at it again, mucky sods

Tank temp @ 28*C to boost the growth of the current fry and last night I saw Daddy chase Mummy into the cave for some after dinner lovin, he didn't even let his dinner go down!

It looks like a bigger clutch of eggs than the last, time to seperate these two I think.