PlanetCatfish.com

Hello all,

This night my L28 spawned! I bought them the 27the of december. In the store I noticed an already rather fat female, I just HAD to take her home. After searching through all the other tanks (and challenging the patience of the store's employee and other customers a little bit ), I managed to find a nice male.


This is what I did: I kept them together with a breeding group of ancistrus in a 90L tank, at 25°C, in tap water. My tap water is rather soft; dH about 9, kH 3-4. Monday I started a somewhat contradictory rainy season: I raised the temperature to 27°C and did daily waterchanges of 40-50%. I also started to feed bloodworms every evening (normally I feed these 2 to 3 times a week), when the light was already out.

Already in the beginning of the past week I saw that my female became very active and she had also become really fat (almost bloated) in the past few weeks. The male also behaved a little bit more active but occupied different caves in a more or less nomadic way. The one day he was here, the other day there... Then on friday the female all of a sudden picked out a cave and stayed inthere the entire day. I knew something was going on, but the cave she picked out was one that the male had never shown interest in before, so I was a little sceptic. The cave is a PVC tube, glued to a flat rock. Yesterday I had a very busy day and I did not pay too much attention on where all my fish were hiding, but today I saw an L28 in the cave. Thinking that it was the female I did not pay to much attention on that as well, but during the feeding I saw the female coming for the food and there was still a L28's tail sticking out of the cave. Taking a closer look at her, I saw that she wasn't that bloated anymore. I took a little mirror to be able to look into the cave and yes, there was the male fanning some eggs!!!

My first hypancistrus spawn! Now still waiting until my queen arabesques start doing it, my female is slowly becoming fat so that's starting to look good as well. Btw, the ancistrus male in the same tank is already guarding his fourth clutch of eggs/fry at the moment.

Thanks for all the tips and tricks I learnt on this forum!!!

Regards,
Wim

Well done bud (and the fish of course)

Tom

Any pics?

about the pics: I'll see what I can do, but I really don't want to disturb them... As soon as they are free-swimming I'll try to document their development. At the moment I can post pics of the parents if you're really interested

Regards,
Wim

Congratulations.

--
Mats

I hope the moms hot.

she definitely is natural beauty

Here are some first pictures of the fish. There is one thing that I am a little bit worried about. All I can see on the eggs is a very tiny plushy red thing (hardly visible on the picture). Are they fertile? Is it normal that the embryo develops so slowly? Water temperature is 27°C.

The pictures:
Mom, fat, 2 days before spawning:


Dad, fanning the eggs. There are a LOT more eggs under his belly...

Hi!

Yeap they are fertiles!!
Congratulation!
Mine haven't spawn since 2 yrs, but they used to do it regulary...I usually would end up with around 45 fry!!

Cheers
Yann

Hello all,

Bad news on the L28 eggs! Yesterday the male kicked out all the eggs. They were not fungused or anything, but I could hardly see any ambryo development in them, and this 8 days after they spawned. According to the breeding report of Yannfulliquet, after 8 days I was supposed to have had fry... I assume the embryo's did not get enough oxygen?

To barbie: I did look twice in the cave with a flashlight. This was on thursday (the day when I posted that I was concerned about the embryo's slow development) and the second time was on saturday. The eggs still looked the same when I checked them on saturday as on thursday.

What else could I have done wrong... mmm, I changed the water twice in the week they had eggs (just my normal waterchanges). Water was approx the same temperature as the tank's water...

Any ideas about what to do with the next spawn? (if they do...)

Regards,
Wim

If this was the very first spawn, there's a strong possibility that the eggs were "old" - I've read more than one report of first spawns of Hypancistrus (and probably other genera) failing the first spawn.

Let's all hope that they do it again...

--
Mats

This was definitly the very first time they spawned in my tank...
Great theory, I really like to believe that! Keeps the options open for the next spawn...

Thanks,
Wim

Hi!

My L28 eggs hatched after 8 days at 27-28°c if I recall right!
Your T° is only 25°c so it does take a bit longer!

if after 8 days they are still "yellow" it means they are fertil but due to your temperature the incubation time does take longer!!

You should have place the batch into a floating nursery device with air stone and a some waters coming of the filter falling into the nursery... this way I managed to keep the incubation of a batch of 20 eggs of L260 and only lost 1 egg, which didn't contaminated the other!! 19 fry came out alive!

Cheers
Yann

Ok, I'll try that in the future if necessary. Btw my temperature still is 27°C. I raised it from 25°C to 27°C and kept it there the whole time.

Regards,
Wim

Hello again,

My L28's are mating again. This time, they seem to take their time. The first time the female dumped her eggs in the cave overnight, now both fish are in the cave for 2 days yet. Hopefully this time I have more success. I'll keep you updated!

Regards,
Wim

Best of luck.

--
Mats

Bad news again, the eggs just disappeared. I did not even see any eggs this time. I knew when she laid because she was considerably thinner, but when I checked the cave yesterday (after good 10 days), I did not see any egg nor fry.

Any suggestions about what to do next time?

Best regards,
Wim

Hi!

Ttry to take the eggs out after 4-5 days and put them in a floating device with airstone and a part of the water coming out of the filter ending in there...

I had a bad male that was eating all the eggs each time...I switched for another male and things went better

Cheers
Yann