going to try breeding L260 need some help...

ubgone · Post by **ubgone** » 10 Mar 2006, 12:17

hello,
I'm going to buy 3 L260 (mature), 2 females and 1 male, I bought a 120 liter tank with overflow and a 40 liter sump, the return pump will be a 2000 l\h atman, I will also put a 800 l\h atman inside the tank for current.
I will put 3 clay puts for them as cave and also 2 small clay puts which i will use as plant pots for Vallisneria gigantea, I will use only tap water but I will use some peat in my sump+ a little amount of peat with each water change..
the temp will be around 25, BTW my tap water KH is 9 and PH is 7.2, I'll buy a GH kit this week so I'll be able to know what GH I have.

if you have anything to add please say,even if you think its obvious.
now for the Q's:

1.I think I will leave the tank bare with only some clay pots and maybe a slate, should I put gravel? and if yes what size of gravel?
2.lets say i'm lucky and i have a cave with eggs, should I take it out and put it in a small tank with methylene blue and air stone? or should i just leave it?
3.food: I was thinking 4 times a day. ocean nutrition algae wafers+Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets, some bloodworms and at night all kinds of vegetables. what do you think?
4.how big should the caves be?
5.I think I know how to tell males from females but if someone could post some pics with good explanation it will be great!
6.I understand that its possiable to breed them in tap water right?

7.I would like to feed them like a shrimp\meat MIX does anyone has a good recipe?

thats it, thanks alot you guys I cant wait to hear from you people!
uri.

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 10 Mar 2006, 22:39

I only feed my L260 at night. 4 times is way to many in my opinion, they will only feed at night.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 11 Mar 2006, 01:33

They most certainly will not. Once conditioned, I feed all my fish, including hypancistrus by day. When your fish become accustomed to your feeding regime, they will venture out during all times of the day to feed.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 11 Mar 2006, 07:36

laurab5 wrote:I only feed my L260 at night. 4 times is way to many in my opinion, they will only feed at night.

Well conditioned fish in suitable surroundings will eat all the time. If yours don't then it's probably too much light, wrong type of tank layout or that they've just been in the tank a few weeks.

Jools

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 11 Mar 2006, 09:52

My Hypancistus will come out and feed at any time of day too.

1.I think I will leave the tank bare with only some clay pots and maybe a slate, should I put gravel? and if yes what size of gravel?

I would get thin sheets of state and use these as the substrate. It would be easy to clean, be more natural, and look much better than bare.

2.lets say i'm lucky and i have a cave with eggs, should I take it out and put it in a small tank with methylene blue and air stone? or should i just leave it?
4.how big should the caves be?
5.I think I know how to tell males from females but if someone could post some pics with good explanation it will be great!
6.I understand that its possiable to breed them in tap water right? Rolling Eyes
7.I would like to feed them like a shrimp\meat MIX does anyone has a good recipe?

You should be able to get this information from searching Shane's World and doing a Forum Search. Remember what usually applies to other Hypancistrus (eg zebras) will apply to L260, so search for these.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/search.php
http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworld/

3.food: I was thinking 4 times a day. ocean nutrition algae wafers+Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets, some bloodworms and at night all kinds of vegetables. what do you think?

My Hypancistrus love whole shrimp and cockle. I would also make sure they get plenty of fibre if they're on a big rich diet to prevent bloating. Tinned broad beans are perfect. I also feed mine pumpkin seeds.

If there is only the Hypancistrus in the tank, be very careful that all the food is eaten.

Here's a couple of links on feeding...

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... ht=pumpkin

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... l264+death

ubgone · Post by **ubgone** » 11 Mar 2006, 13:59

thx 4 the replays!

my main Q is still:
do u think its possible to breed them without RO water?

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 11 Mar 2006, 16:21

do u think its possible to breed them without RO water?

I believe it has been done, but it may be much harder to trigger them.

The person to speak to is Barbie about this.

Post by **Barbie** » 11 Mar 2006, 20:45

It can definitely be done. It will require you collecting snow and melting it or rain water though ;). The RO unit is quite a bit less work in the long run, hehe.

Barbie

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 11 Mar 2006, 21:59

My tank is setup right, i just never knew they would feed during day. They get only natural sunlight. But, my L260 and L066 colonies will be gone in a few weeks

ubgone · Post by **ubgone** » 11 Mar 2006, 23:33

barbie i don't know if u noticed B U T I live in israel....
the only snow i see is on TV...

u dont think using peat would be enough?

Post by **Barbie** » 12 Mar 2006, 03:15

What stimulates them to spawn is the change in their TDS. No. Peat will not be enough. Definitely do a search for spawning L260 and read the articles in Shanes World. It's all lined out there

.

Barbie

Zohar · Post by **Zohar** » 12 Mar 2006, 10:38

Where do you buy them? and on what price? I may want to join you.

Zohar

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 12 Mar 2006, 12:33

Barbie,

This is a little off topic, but not too much I hope. Can I publically chase up that catfish of the month on breeding these guys? While Janne's excellent piece documents all the detail, it'd be good to get a chatty informal piece for the CotM slot...

Jools

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » 12 Mar 2006, 18:36

When spawning a fish that is triggered by a rainy season, the only possible way to get a spawn without the use of RO is a "VERY" long dry season. In the case of Hypancistrus, the females eggs will usually be past their prime by the time the breeder does a water change to trigger spawning, and infertility will result.

The only reason that the longer dry season helps is that there is an increase in the TDS caused by food, waste, and minerals dissolving from rockwork etc... The tap is actually quite a bit lower than what is in the tank.

Larry Vires

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 12 Mar 2006, 22:54

Spawns that I have pulled out usually occur weeks after I administer the water change.

Post by **Barbie** » 13 Mar 2006, 06:07

Yes Jools. I'll work on that this evening actually. I keep meaning to finish it and then I shove it to the back burner. It's been more than a year since I said I'd do it so I'm pretty sure no excuse is really good enough. Watch your email in the morning ;). I still have yet to get any really good in the cave shots with L260 but I'm sure you'd let me add them later ;).

Barbie

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 14 Mar 2006, 12:22

ubgone wrote:barbie i don't know if u noticed B U T I live in israel....
the only snow i see is on TV...

u dont think using peat would be enough?

Peat doesn't alter the TDS (Total dissolved solids, another measure of total hardness - give or take a bit) of the water. Depending on what your water is like in your tap, you have different options:
If you have anything but really soft water, you would most likely need to find some low-hardness water - such as RO water, distilled water (as for car batteries/steam irons, etc) or de-ionized water. [The content of all these "products" is essentially the same: water with very low mineral content - they are just different in what kind of equipment is used to remove the mineral content.]

If you have REALLY soft water (total hardness in the low single digits region), you could possibly get away with adding some mineral content to the water as part of the "dry season" treatment, and then use plain tapwater as "rainy season". [The mineral content would be the same type of minerals that you'd add to RO water if you use RO water only - different manufacturers have different types].

I have no idea what the water is like anywhere in Israel, so I don't know if it's soft, hard or medium.

If you decide that you need RO water, and you don't want to spend a hundred+ US dollars on a RO unit, you may be able to buy RO water from the LFS. Here in the UK, you can buy 25 liter for a 5-10 or so US dollars at a time. You probably really only need two or three low TDS water changes for each trigger [but the first attempt MAY not work, so you could need to trigger them again later on].

Once you've had them breed once, they may not need quite as big a trigger either.

--
Mats