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I have a 30 gallon tank that houses two Zebras and two QA's. Over the last couple years I have became fairly confident that my two zebras were females and the two Queens were males which is very obvious with the odontodes everywhere on them. Well, about a week ago I noticed the other zebra chasing the other one which I thought was odd as I had never seen them do that before. Once during that week I did see him check out a cave the a QA calls home but was gone shortly. For the last three days the Zebra has been in the QA's cave and the QA has been guarding the mouth of the cave. Thats were the facts stop, does anyone know what might be going on. I figure I am probably going to have to get the QA away from the cave but was wanting some input on this before breaking it up. I tried to take a picture but there is too much Anubius in the way.

My thoughts are that:

(a) my zebras are a pair and bred and the queen is upset about losing its cave

(b) The queen and zebra are fighting over the cave

(c) The queen and zebra cross bred. I find this highly unlikely as they look very dissimilar and the female would have left by now.

I don't know. Any thoughts?

(c) The queen and zebra cross bred. I find this highly unlikely as they look very dissimilar and the female would have left by now.

not quite as impossible as it sounds:


Ok, so it's not the same species, but they are similar. Obviously, these species are keen enough to spawn with whatever other specie that is similar enough...

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Mats

Get yourself a male zebra placo and a female QA. I have both, but you live far away.. But if you would trade one of your female zebs, i am shure there is many arond that could help

Well I finally nudged the QA out of the way which took a lot of convincing. He fled and after about an hour the Zebra came out with no eggs in cave. The Zebra then kept going to the other Zebra and then back to the cave when I approached. (The other Zebras hiding spot is fairly close to this cave) About an hour after that I found the Zebra and the QA at the mouth of the cave going at it back and forth. I think that after all of these years of keeping these that I finally have a male Zebra maturing and its having a territory dispute over the best cave. I think I am going to pull the QA's out this week and see what develops.

Well I never took the QA's out and had plans on moving the tank into my fishroom today. After draining a lot of the water I started removing the caves and rocks, and there amongst all of the crap under the caves I noticed some movement. Upon looking closer I found about 7 baby L46 about 7-8 days old. Some how I lucked out and had a male and a female out of two fish. I have had them about 3 years or so but I guess the male must have finally reached adulthood.

One thing to note. The zebra didn't spawn in the cave but in the crevices amongst the caves. Which is the main reason I didn't notice the spawn sooner. I thought that seemed odd but am not complaining.

That was sure a nice way to start the week.

Congratulations...

I'd still keep the QA in a separate tank... But I think that's what you're planning to do anyways.

The spawning site probably indicates that the caves aren't quite right, so the male "made his own" from the gaps between them. Of course, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference...

Best of luck keeping them growing...

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Mats

Yah I was pretty happy when I found them. I managed to take this bad picture. I beleive I have 7 babies.

Pic

That's awesome news!

Sorry to rehash such an old post but someone asked for pics of these and I thought this was the best place to post them. It wound up being a male queen was getting groovy with the zebra female. They did produce young and the young are living in a discus tank. I was all excited about them being zebras but as they grew it became quite apparent that it was a mix between the two. I'm posting a fry pic and a pic I took of them on tuesday. Almost all of the fish have the same pattern with very little variation between any of them. The swirls and dots are almost identical on all of them.

I am not a big fan of creating hybrids, but those are some of the best looking hypancistrus I have ever seen.

It will be interesting to see if they are sterile, or can produce offspring. Have you got both sexes of the hybrids? Good luck with them, and keep us posted on your progress

The body pattern along with the 'pure white' coloration makes them amazing!

Too bad their hybrids......


***For sure we want more pics and info on them!

Hi PlecoCrazy
Big thanks for posting the pics looks nice fish BTW interesting to how they will turn out in the end .

Thanks once again.

Jerry

I can't help but think that many of the Brazilian Hypancistrus in the Rio Xingu, Rio Tapajos and other nearby streams are so closely related that they are not yet well defined species. I don't just mean species by our definition but identity recognition between each other in the wild is not much of a barrier. Aquarium hybrids look very much like any number of wild individual specimens from these streams. When the Brazilian Hypancistrus are described and more molecular genetic information about them becomes known I suspect we are not going to have quite as many L-numbered Hypancistrus but a few species which have many local color variations. I have followed the discus species debates over a long time and in just one species, Symphysodon haraldi there are no two individuals that are exactly the same yet there are easily recognized color types peculiar to regions within the range of S. haraldi. Once there were Brown Discus and Blue Discus and everything in between but it is now recognized there is just the one, S. haraldi.
I'm not suggesting that all Brazilian Hypancistrus belong to one species but I am expecting there are far fewer species than we presently treat them. Even so, it is desirable to maintain distinctly different location types pure in our breeding projects as best we can. Even that is not practical since only a very few of us have personally collected our own fish or obtained them with a clear chain of custody. This hybrid between the L260 Queen Arabesque and H. zebra does raise some very interesting questions. Even more so should the fry prove to be viable. It looks much like many other L-numbers or Hypancistrus "Rio Curuai"

Hi, thanks for sharing the information.
But I was kind of wondering as I read, because it's impossible to tell if a fry is a zebra or Queen when then are 7/8 days old. No distinct pattern will have developed yet (unless they are 2 or 3 weeks older than you though).

Anyway, just a point from my own observation. If you have a colony of zebras. You may find that the zebras tend to reject none linear line plecos. Even if it's one of they're own sibblings, if they show a funny T or H or Y pattern fin, they have a lower social status (always the last to eat). Not sure why but that is my observation. So under a none localized environment; as in the wild, hypans might not interbreed even if it is physically possible ...

Zebrapl3co wrote:Hi, thanks for sharing the information.
But I was kind of wondering as I read, because it's impossible to tell if a fry is a zebra or Queen when then are 7/8 days old. No distinct pattern will have developed yet (unless they are 2 or 3 weeks older than you though).

I don't understand. The first pic is a picture of the fry back in January 2006 at probably 7/8 days old.
The second picture is of the same fry (no longer fry), now 2.5 years old taken September 29, 2009.

PlecoCrazy wrote:I don't understand. The first pic is a picture of the fry back in January 2006 at probably 7/8 days old.
The second picture is of the same fry (no longer fry), now 2.5 years old taken September 29, 2009.

Oh, I was just saying thanks for your update and clarification. Because if not for your latest update. I would have doubts that they are really zebra fry from the original post because it's impossible to tell if they are zebra fry or Queen fry at 7/8 days old.