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I took a quick look yesterday, and several eggs appeared a milky yellow colour, as if they weren't fertilised. This morning I checked again, and although I can only see two eggs past the male they look like they may be beginning to fungus.

Hopefully, he is just getting back into it, and if this spawn isn't successful, then the next one will be! Hopefully I'll be able to get a better view of the eggs soon and provide an update.

Marc, you are having quite some problems with eggs not making it until the hatching, right? Same with your L260 if I recall correctly?

Are you running on tapwater? Maybe you could provide the waterparameters your water supplier states on his website or the likes. At least in germany they post some of the basic parameters.

You are right, I have only 1 L260 youngster from several spawns.

I use 80% RO with 20% tap water, mainly because the tap water has 40ppm Nitrate, has a TDS of ~350ppm, and pH 7.8.

I have read my water suppliers report, its scary how much nasty stuff is in the water, although at very low levels. If you would like to read it my areas water quality report is here: http://cdn.southeastwater.co.uk/Files/Greywell.pdf

If it is sustainable to you, I would switch to 99% RO and 1% tap. At least if your tanks only house plecos. See if that helps with your hatch rates.

That is something I'm planning to try in future, when I get a bigger RO unit. I was wondering if running the 20% tap water through a HMA filer would help clean it up a bit.

Have you had issues with pH using 99% RO?

I have had no issues with PH in very soft water. I am using mostly rainwater now, since the RO unit could not supply my needs.

Well aeriated tanks tend not to have fast drops in PH since the CO2 level is usually stable. PH will just go lower, the longer there is no waterchange, since the accumulation of Nitrats tend to lower PH over time.

In fact, I talked to many german pleco breeders, that are running on 100% RO. Not sure if it is absolutely true though. I tend to add some drops of tap water every now and then, to make sure mineral and trace elements stay available to the fish. I also do stimulations using tapwater, so I guess it never really gets to run on 100% RO or Rainwater at all, since it would take a lot of waterchanges with 100% RO to reduce the minerals to 0.

That makes sense. I have been running some tests on my rain water recently, but it seems to vary a lot, the 5 most recent rains have all had ammonia between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm, but a consistent pH of 6 and TDS between 2 and 10 ppm.

I guess that level of ammonia will be quickly used up by the filter bacteria, but I would rather not add it to my tank. I live quite near a waste incinerator (1.5km) so maybe that has an effect on the rain in my area.

I think I'll look into getting a larger capacity RO unit to begin with.

I never tested my water for Ammonia, Nitrate or Nitrite
I put some cherry shrimps into some rainwater and watched what would happen. Well, nothing happened. Looked good enough to me.

Hi all,

MarcW wrote: 25 Jan 2018, 14:09 .....I have been running some tests on my rain water recently, but it seems to vary a lot, the 5 most recent rains have all had ammonia between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm, but a consistent pH of 6 and TDS between 2 and 10 ppm.

I guess that level of ammonia will be quickly used up by the filter bacteria, but I would rather not add it to my tank. I live quite near a waste incinerator (1.5km) so maybe that has an effect on the rain in my area.......

I'd be surprised if there was any ammonia in your rain water, it is more likely to be a false positive from the test kit.

TDS
Because your TDS values are so low (10 ppm TDS, is about 16 microS (10 / 0.64)) you have almost pure H2O, with very few solutes of any description. In the summer you might get bird muck etc. building up on the roof, but in the winter when it rains a lot it is all quickly diluted. The same applies to aerial dust, you don't get much in the winter, it is all washed out by the rain.

To give an idea of how pure your rain water is, if you add 0.49g (491mg) sodium chloride (NaCl) to a litre of water it makes a 1000 µS standard solution (https://www.hach.com/sodium-chloride-st ... 7640198798).

So if we call your top conductivity value 20 micros, 1/2 a gram of salt is enough to raise the conductivity of 50 litres of H2O (RO) by 20 microS, and a teaspoon of salt weighs ~6g. You can check your TDS meter is working properly using this addition of salt method.

Why I like conductivity meters
This is why I really like conductivity as a measurement, it is a linear scale from pure H2O (0 microS) to full strength sea water (53,000 microS), and you can just dip the meter in and get an accurate and repeatable measurement. If you get 20 microS you have very, very few solutes of any description.

Ammonia
The waste incinerator won't produce any ammonia, it would produce some nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions.

If you had an intensive pig, or poultry farm, immediately in your vicinity? they would be a possible source of ammonia (NH3) <http://adlib.everysite.co.uk/resources/ ... nia_uk.pdf>.

pH
The same applies to pH, it is not a very useful measurement as you move towards pure H2O, any addition of acids (proton (H+) donors) (or bases - "proton acceptors"), however small, will cause big changes in pH. This is because pure water has no "buffering" (http://www.water-research.net/index.php ... monitoring).

Rain-water is acidic because of the very small amount of CO2 that dissolves into it (Henry's law -
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_law)) and the even smaller proportion of that that becomes carbonic acid (H2CO2) and disassociates into H+ (that is the acid) and HCO3- (http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~edudev/ ... drain.html).

As soon as you add any carbonate buffering (dKH) the pH will rise. It is all limestone locally for me, and even in the winter the conductivity of the rain-water (from the barrel) never gets below 30 microS, and the pH is always ~pH8.

The pH of our tap water (from a limestone aquifer) is also about pH8, but it has a conductivity of ~700 microS and about 18dKH, and it takes a huge acid addition (adding H+ ions) before the bases (accepting H+ ions) are exhausted.

cheers Darrel

Thanks for the detailed explanation Darrel.

The only farming which goes on in my immediate area is growing grains, there are a few farms with small numbers of animals around, but the nearest pig farm, which is small and free range, I would guess around 50 pigs is over 5 miles away as the crow flies.

It sounds strange to me that your rain water is ~pH8, only because my tap water comes from a limestone aquifer too (although my immediate vicinity is clay), yet my rain appears to consistently be between pH6 and 6.8, more often than not closer to 6. That is 10 samples taken over 3 months collected directly into a clean food grade plastic bucket placed in the middle of my patio.

Unfortunately all the eggs fungused, there were only three remaining when I found them. From what I've seen the male tried to separate the fungused eggs and kick them out, then gave up once all had fungused.

Hi all,

MarcW wrote: 26 Jan 2018, 17:01 It sounds strange to me that your rain water is ~pH8, only because my tap water comes from a limestone aquifer too (although my immediate vicinity is clay), yet my rain appears to consistently be between pH6 and 6.8, more often than not closer to 6. That is 10 samples taken over 3 months collected directly into a clean food grade plastic bucket placed in the middle of my patio.

I think the difference is probably the collection method, mine collect from the roof and the butts have been in situ for ~15 years. I'm pretty sure, at this time of year, if I used the same method as you, I would get lower pH and conductivity readings.

I have 2 more butts at the front of the house so about 1000 litres of storage.



cheers Darrel

Thanks Darrel.

Are those just regular water butt's you'd get from a garden centre? I guess you haven't had any issues with them being made from recycled or non food safe stamped plastics?

I ask as I know water from a bottle left in a hot car or in full sun for too long takes on a nasty plastic like taste. I guess the same happens with the water butts but it doesn't bother the fish.

Too bad, Marc

This must be quite frustrating.

My guess is, that it is a water problem. And I do not want to imply a high level of Nitrate or other natural substances or a lack of cleanliness etc., as pleco eggs tend to be pretty resistant to those kind of stuff. I guess there is a problem with heavy metals or the like.

I would actually go with the rainwater. Seems to work better for me than RO water. Just do a 25% waterchange with rainwater. You should see quickly if there is any trouble coming. If there are no troubles, go to higher rates of rainwater. You can run your rainwater through a carbon filtration first, if you feel unsecure. But I quickly found, that just pure and simple rainwater works very well with all kind of south american fish.

Edit: Is there anything else your L260 and L128 tanks have in common except for the water? Some special kind of filtration? (carbon etc?) Maybe it is something inside the tanks dissolving into the water? Same stones? Same substrate? Same wood? You might want to look into anything these tanks have in common.

I think I need to start collecting rain water!

They are in the same room, and I use the same water for changes.

They both use cannister filters plus Swiss Tropicals sponge filters (being seeded for some new tanks). The cannisters both contain Fluval biomax , and Eheim substrat pro media, that's the only similarities I can think of. None of the substrate or hardscape is the same, no tools or hoses are shared between the tanks either.

Are you adding any water treatments?

Your filtermedia should be fine. Don't think that's an issue.

Nothing is added except seachem prime. Which I add to the RO/tap water mix before I put it in the tank. I only add enough to dechlorinate the volume of tap water I add to the mix.

Also there are no air fresheners or cleaning products used in that room.

Maybe I just have really bad tap water!

Hi all,

MarcW wrote: 28 Jan 2018, 08:04 Thanks Darrel.

Are those just regular water butt's you'd get from a garden centre? I guess you haven't had any issues with them being made from recycled or non food safe stamped plastics?

I ask as I know water from a bottle left in a hot car or in full sun for too long takes on a nasty plastic like taste. I guess the same happens with the water butts but it doesn't bother the fish.

The two on the left are ordinary water butts from a garden centre. The pale one I've had for ~25 years (it has photo-degraded) and the second one I got discounted via a water saving initiative in the early 2000's (something like this <https://www.southernwater.co.uk/water-butts>).

They are daisy chained together via the tap on the first butt (the second butt has two taps, one coming from the first butt and one to draw the water off with).

Water is diverted into the butt via a diverter kit, and I clean the diverter up every couple of months.

Any debris is retained by the first butt, and I can isolate detach and clean (either butt) without losing all my water. I occasionally dip the conductivity meter in the butts, but the only water testing method I use is the Daphnia bioassay.

There are further details in <"using rainwater.."(https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... 1&start=20)>, and linked thread.

The one on the right is a cleaned food grade container, the only disadvantage with these is it does have a large aperture for cleaning and you have to jet out any debris with a hose pipe.

If I was starting again, I would use a 1000 litre IBC (This sort of thing <https://www.directwatertanks.co.uk/ibc-containers>).

cheers Darrel

Thanks for the detail Darrel.

It's funny you mention an IBC, that was what I was thinking of. I'm planning one in the garage for RO storage, and was thinking of another next to it for rain water.

I think I'll start small with a water butt and test run rain water on a tank or two, then if it works get something bigger and use the water butt for watering the garden.

I have more eggs .

The male had been trapping the female on and off for about 3-4 days last week, but over the past few days I've not seen much activity so I assumed nothing had happened. I just looked over and saw the male fanning, I had a quick look with a torch and there are maybe 30-40 eggs, I guess 3-5 days old. I have my fingers crossed that the male is being a better father this time as with previous spawns several eggs would have been kicked out by now. I'm planning to leave him alone and quiet for now.

I have some video of the trapping that happened last week, which I'll post later on, once I've got it onto my PC and YouTube.

Congratulations, Marc. That's super. I hope you have a good hatch rate.

Cheers, Eric

Congratulations... looking forward at seeing the fry!

Chuck

Thanks Eric and Chuck, I have my fingers crossed!

Its warm in the tank at the moment, 29c, all other parameters are as previously stated in this thread.

I don't have room for more fish yet, but construction on my fish room (part of a larger home extension) is nearly done, hopefully I'll have fish in it by the middle of August. I'll start a new thread for that though with plenty of pictures.

Video of an unsuccessful trapping from last week is below, nothing much happens until 13:40 when you first see the female who has backed into the cave, then at 14:55, the male leaves and the female comes out shortly after. They repeated this over several days but I missed the actual spawn which I assume was on Friday night or over the weekend.

Notice that the female has pectoral odontodes, of a similar size to my sub dominant males, but you can see she is gravid from the size of her belly.

The small L128 to the right of shot is from a previous spawn, detailed in this thread.

They are hatching, maybe its quicker this time due to the higher temperature, it's been warm here recently, the tank is 2-3c higher than normal.

At the bottom in the middle of this picture you can see a wriggler with a dead wriggler behind it to the right. All the rest appear to be in the cave, I've had most success when the male keeps them until the yolk sack is mostly if not all absorbed.

Look to be coming along nicely.... keep up the good work and thank you for sharing!

Chuck

Okay I have 8 albino bn plecos in my 29 gallon and they have bred for me multiple times. Recently have added 2 blue eyes ones. This recent spawn I went to pull the fry out of the cone they bred in an all the babies were brown How does this work because for a fish to be albino they have to enherit both recessive genes from their parents which leaves no normal brown gene or else they would be brown because that is dominant over albino.. If anyone has further info on this Please inform me. I cannot tell yet if their eyes are blue or not.

Unfortunately I have lost them all. I noticed the male wasn't in the cave and there were no eggs either.

After looking around I found the eggs to the side of the cave, most were empty shells, I guess the male ate the fungused ones leaving the empty shells? One egg looked good so I transferred it to a tumbler but it fungused within a few hours. I'm hoping the wriggler I saw escaped and may re-appear one day.

I have a feeling the fungus issue may be something to do with my water, when I get my fish room setup, hopefully in a month or so, I plan to use RO as well as HMA filtration for the tap water I use to mix with the RO. Hopefully I'll have more success with the different setup, so long as moving them doesn't stop the spawning!

Marc,

Just came across your thread! This is amazing to see as I am starting to do my research now on setting up a breeding colony of L128s. Great job, your tank looks really nice!

Hi, thanks!

Hopefully this thread will give you some pointers, the 6 young are still doing really well, probably approaching 3.5 inches TL, once I get my fish room up and running I will separate them into another tank, with a bit of luck I may get them breeding too.

I've already got my new RO, HMA, and DI systems for the new fish room, hopefully that will reduce or eliminate the fungus problems I've been having with the eggs if they spawn again.

They really appear to like the rock work, it gives the female a sheltered dark place to hang out close to the males preferred cave, they also appear to appreciate flow through the gaps in the rockwork, I just use a small power head to create that.

Good luck, it would be great to see some pictures of the fish and tank once you have got it setup.