L236 Spawn!

[Raul-7]

This spawn is rather surprising as I haven't done anything special, I just leave them alone as much as I can. Here are some stats-

Tank: JBJ 24G
Decoration: black sand, one cave for alpha male and driftwood for beta male and female.
Feeding: once every 3 days at night, lots of food though.
gH: 9
kH: 5
TDS: 400 and above (no water changes since setup)

I got my L236's to spawn after about 4 months (I got them in Feb). The male is gaurding the wrigglers fiercly. I tried tilting the cave and shaking it to get the fry out but he managed to keep them all from falling! I'm worried now that he might eat them? What should I do and how can I kidnap his fry succesfully?

HELP!

[PlecoCrazy]

Congrats. I doubt you will have any problems with him eating them. If you left them alone in there with him they will be just fine. Its just harder to catch them once they have left the cave.

[Rantosa]

good stuff mate
how many males and females in the group? anything that you think that could have triggered them? we want the full story..okay fine, i want the whole story

[Raul-7]

good stuff mate
how many males and females in the group? anything that you think that could have triggered them? we want the full story..okay fine, i want the whole story

Thanks everyone for the comments. There are three in the colony 2M:1F. The tank has one cave facing directly towards the front. One Maxi-jet (106gph) and the JBJ sump 208gph. They used to be in a community tank untill early April when I decided they needed their own space. I moved them and the tank is in an empty room where there isn't a lot of human activity. The lights are turned on manually, sometimes I skip a day or two. Feeding wise, I only feed them every two to three days - strictly Hikari Sinking pellets.

I'm really surprised they spawn as most Hyp. sp. need a lot of stimulation to get the first spawn. But I did nothing out of the usual, no WC's, no turning the heater off - nothing! I just left them alone - which is the key I believe.

Then one night I decided to check on the alpha male (I never see him come out at night), and low and behold I saw little wrigglers swarming around his head! I checked two more times to make sure I wasn't just seeing something and then I saw the glare in their eyes - they look like tadpoles now, I guess they still have their yolk salks. I decided against kidnapping them as he is doing a great job at caring for them, I think I'll swipe them once they come out.

Does preforming a WC stress or kill the fry?

[Rantosa]

even though i have not spawned my hypansistrus.. vaious reasons from tank leaking to finding the correct combination. But i have spawned my L144 . I took them out at a week old and put them in their own tank, i was planning to do waterchanges on them every day and that was from the tap...guess what some died the next day..then i did waterchanges from the parents tank and they were fine..
In your case you cannot try that yet.

why don't you try doing 10% waterchanges every day for a week. Whitout doing a big 30-50% waterchange. The impact will be small. Maybe even get a bucket put some water in it and let it run with an airstone for a day and then heat the water to the tank temp and then do the top up with this water. I have read this somewhere but cannot remember.. i think it was in this forum

[MatsP]

I've done water changes on normal Bristlenose babies, and they do fine that way - and I just leave the babies in with the father. I don't know of any Loricariidae that eats it's own (or others Loricariidae) fry... I'm sure someone will come up with a list of the ones that do just becasue I just wrote this...

--
Mats

[Barbie]

No lists MatsP ;). The egg or fry eaters seem to be something that crops up here and there, usually if there's something already wrong with the eggs maybe, as the same fish usually gets it right with a little practice.

I've actually done rainy season changes on tanks with young Hypancistrus fry. Once I missed seeing the eggs and another time I was forbidden to use my flashlight ;). While I'm sure it's not the greatest idea, it didn't hurt anything. Having tap water that already closely matches your tank water should make it perfectly acceptable to do 30% changes with fry in the tank, IME.

Barbie

[Janne]

You asked for it Hypancistrus, Peckoltia and Leporacanthicus species eats eggs or fry that still have a yolksac but as soon it is consumed and the fry are free swimming they dont bother them, in other genus I have not seen any kind of that behaviour...yet.

Janne

[HaakonH]

Raul-7; It's not that I don't believe that your fish are L-236, but could you document this by posting some pics? Given how rare the real L-236 is I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate this.

Aquarium Glaser in Germany posted a note on their site a while back stating that they were now offering offspring from the ONLY 2 real specimens of L-236 ever imported... I'm not quite sure wether to believe this or not, but clearly there are several fake L-236 on the market. If you, Raul-7, have the real L-236 as well, this would obviously prove that the pair in Germany is not the only one in captivity

[Raul-7]

Raul-7; It's not that I don't believe that your fish are L-236, but could you document this by posting some pics? Given how rare the real L-236 is I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate this.

Aquarium Glaser in Germany posted a note on their site a while back stating that they were now offering offspring from the ONLY 2 real specimens of L-236 ever imported... I'm not quite sure wether to believe this or not, but clearly there are several fake L-236 on the market. If you, Raul-7, have the real L-236 as well, this would obviously prove that the pair in Germany is not the only one in captivity

Sorry for skipping this, I was off on vacation and couldn't actually monitor their progress.

I got them from Blue, he told me they were caught in the Rio Iriri. Not sure if that makes them the real L236 though.

Here's a picture of the first fry out the cave-


Group shot-


Thanks.