PlanetCatfish.com

Hi Everyone,
I have a pair of albino ancistrus in a 10 gal tank with a sponge filter. I change 3 gal every other day. They eat spirulina disks and zucchini. My water is 78F PH 7.8 and GH KH is 12. They have a 4 inch PVC endcap for a cave. Is there something I can do to get them to spawn or should I just give them time? I have been trying for 6 weeks now.
Thanks
Eric

1. Stop trying so hard...
2. Drop the temperature a few degress (4'F or so, perhaps).

How large are they, does the female look "fat" around the "midriff"?

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Mats

Sounds like my first ABN breeding set up. I had read everything I could find and was ready to do daily cool water changes to trigger them. Only one problem, they spawned before I had a chance!

I feel that conditioning is more important than triggering these fish. Add a little seafood to their diet a few times a week. And I use a high protein pellet when getting the females ready. "Pleco Power Pellets" from Sonic over on Aquabid. But don't stop feeding them fresh veggies. Without the fiber they can get a fatal blockage.

Don

Thanks for the input!!!
The Male is about 4 inches and the female is about 3. She does look plump like she should be ripe, but I am new to plecos and maybe this is normal?
Thanks
Eric

Hard to say. My breeding female is quite large (bigger than the male) and she doesn't get VERY plump, but others I've seen on picture have been a lot plumper.

I'd just leave them alone a bit, perhaps even let the water quality deteriorate a little bit (not so that the fish are in any danger, just let it go maybe a few more days than usual), then do a bigger water-change.

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Mats

My first ABN set up, the 10 gallon, was in a high traffic area of the house. The back and both sides already had a background so to keep them calm I covered the front. But I wanted to see them so I cut a small hole and put my webcam on them. This was a great way to view them without disturbing them. And I was able to record the violent courtship. Unfortunitly I lost those videos to a hard drive crash.

But I was doing just as Mat suggests above. I got them all set up and was planning on letting the water go a little before starting the cool water changes. But three days later they had their first spawn. I guess I was going by a book that the fish had not read!

Good luck with them.

Don

These fish have not spawned yet and I was wondering does it disturb them to much to clean inside their cave every WC? If I don't remove and clean every couple of days it builds up lots of toxic wast underneath. Is this normal? I am surprised at how much wast these fish produce.
Thanks
Eric

Good question. Not sure if it disturbs them much, but I wouldn't think it would stop them spawning if they are willing and ready.

You say "their cave", does this mean a single cave for both male and femal? That's usually not a good idea, the male needs to have a cave that he thinks of as HIS cave - if the female can trivially get in there, the male will not be happy to spawn in there. The male needs to be able to control the cave to feel happy to spawn, and that means that it needs to be a tight fit entrance at least. Also, the spawing location must not be "open both ends", but should be blocked at one end.

The female will certainly appreciate a second hiding place, which doesn't need to be a tight fit.

Yes, these fish produce huge amounts of waste, that's perfectly normal and healthy!

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Mats

hi eric,

i finally got mine to spawn by leaving the tank lights of for a couple of days. i had tried to lower the temp with no success so i tried the lights. within a day in a half they had spawned for the first time. good luck

jacked

Hi Mats and Jacked,
Thanks for the advise. I have one cave in the 10 gal tank. It is a 4 inch PVC endcap with 1 small hole in the side. What should I use for teh other cave? Can I use a flowerpot placed on its side?
Thanks
Eric

Well, there's two issues:
1. You need both fishes to have a home that they call their own. It's almost certain that the male will not spawn if the female is sharing his cave at the moment. The males cave needs to be such that he can CLAIM it, which means that it needs to have a "snug fit" entrance. The male should just about fit in there. I have a 1 1/4" (32mm) PVC pipe in my tank at the moment, with a plug at one end, and it's been successfully used as a spawning pipe.

Another, smaller, male has spawned a few times in a 1" bamboo "pipe" [in a different tank].

The key here is that the female should only be able to get in if the male allows it.

2. The female needs to find a home of her own. It's not particularly important what this looks like, as long as it's out of light and cosy in the fish's opinion. A piece of bogwood, flowerpot or PVC pipe are all fine candidates.

[Must spend some time sorting through the 100 pictures I took of the smaller male and a female spawning several weeks back.]

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Mats

Hi Mats,
How long does that 1 1/4" pipe need to be?
Thanks
Eric

About 1.5x the length of the fish, I'd say. Seeing as they probably come in 6-8' lenghts, unless you have off-cuts laying about, it's probably not important.

You may find that a couple of male-to-female connectors connected together may work well too.

Of course, I used a piece of wood as "end-cap", but if you're going on a buying trip, you may just as well buy an end-cap...

The US is a big place, any chance you could add some more detail to your "location" - just curious to know where people are, really...

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Mats

Hi Mats,
I think I will replcase the 4 inch endcap with 2, 1-1/4" pipes with endcaps and see what happens. I hope the pipes stay cleaner than the endcaps. Do you have to clean them out often?
Thanks
Eric

The male will tend to his pipe by cleaning it before spawning, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

I do clean the caves once in a while, but definitely not every water change.

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Mats

Hi Eric,

I have been raising Bn's for last year. I kept and let 6 BN's, pair off and grow to 3 1/2 " (males 3 1/2 and Fe's 3"). In the meantime, had a choice of 3 caves in this 40 Gal tank, figuring that each of the pair would stake out a cave when they were ready to spawn.

Instead, each of the pair chose to breed, one pair at a time, in the longest and most natural looking cave (an imitation 18" plastic log, which has one cave inside of it of 5" long)and approx. 1 1/2" dia. opening.

I noted when the first pair were through breeding, the female left the cave and the male took over guarding the eggs and keeping others out. After the young became free swimming, they left the cave all at once, with the male. Almost immediately, the second pair took up residence in the same cave, and proceeded to breed.

After that 2nd pairs brood left cave, here came the 3rd pair. I now have 50+ fry left in the same tank but I have sold the breeders. I did only 20% water changes, once every 3-4 days. Temp steady at 77F and have natural sand with some pebbles and few live
plants. Feeding Hikari pleco wafers and squash or yams and natural wood and heavy outcrop of algae on that arti. log. They constantly are browsing on the natural algae and the pleco wafers.

I suspect that many serious breeders of BN use completely bare tanks, with just the caves. I did this for fun and wanted to enjoy a natural-looking environment and it helps support this hobby. Good luck and I suggest you start growing natural algae asap, as they love it.

Riftrod, I don't know if Janne (Ekström) on this forum is what you consider "serious breeder", but he is in my book. He definitely does NOT recommend bare-bottom tanks for two reasons:
1. The film of bacteria that builds up on the bottom of the tank produces toxic substances that the fry sit in, which can kill them.
2. If you feed any live or frozen food that is likely to "fly about" in the tank, gravel will cause it to stay in place better than a bare-bottom environment.

It's interesting that you seem to have pairs rather than a dominant male that mates with several of the females.

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Mats

That's interesting.....so by accident I set up with substrate which was the most non-toxic environment. No wonder the fry have been so healthy and grew so fast. One would think their same cave of choice to breed in, is the Hotel California, the way all three pair used it, one after the other.

I don't have any problem with bare bottomed tank.Apologies for vid being a bit blurred but if you click on the picture you can see it is very busy.

i think i may have had it too easy the first time i bred my BN. i added one cave which was 2 terra cotta plates with a hole in it, and a male BN to a 10G. 2 days later he claimed the cave and was always in it. the next day i added a fat female, and 2 days later i had 20-30 eggs. they hatched on jan 5th and so far i have only lost 3.

since the first spawning i moved the female to a seperate tank and then moved the male and his cave to a seperate 10G. i waited 3 dasy and he never claimed the cave again. so i added an Albino Longfin female and it has been 5 days, no eggs, and the female wont leave the cave.

should i remove the female and try with a different female or should i start everything over with a new cave and female, or just add a 2nd cave

also are Albino BN more challenging to breed than browns, and does the long fin add to the difficulties?

Bummer, 4 days after adding 2 1-1/4 PVC pipes with end caps my female curled up in one and died. I don't know if the male trapped her in there and killed her? Well now I am searching for another female.
Thanks
Eric

Hi,

this is a good question: Is a 32mm PVC pipe too small for an ancistrus? Can it turn around in this pipe to go outside of it?

These fish don't need to "turn" to get back out. They are perfectly happy to "forward in"/"reverse out".

As long as he pipe's inside diameter is a bit bigger than the male, it's fine.

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Mats

Sorry to hear your female died.

I have had problems getting my albino BN to spawn as well. I've tried all the tricks and all my ohter BN including my long fin albinos have all spawned 3 or 4 times since my standard fin albinos have.

Guess the best thing is to leave them be and let them spawn when they are ready.

feed them frozen bloodworms.

My not albinos would breed every month (one female, 3 males in a regular 30 gallon). When I stopped feeding them bloodworms they stopped breeding. The only other food they got was Hikari algae wafers.

Also I had like an emporer 400, a 400gph powerhead and a 125gph powerhead for lots of current, I don't think that matters though. Half RO, half 8.0 little on the hard side tap water. I don't remember the temp it was 5-6 years ago.