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What's up my name is Tom and I am new to this forum, I just got my first catfish a few weeks ago and he/she is a bristlenose pleco. I have been reading up on breeding these guys but I cannot find specific information on what will be a danger to the fry. At the moment the tank has 4 goldfish and my bristlenose. If I were to add another of the opposite sex and successfully breed them would I have to remove the fry? Do the goldfish pose a serious threat, or is it okay to leave the fry alone? The tank is four feet long by 18 inches deep and 18 inches high. There are numerous plants and two large pieces of bogwood to hide in. The substrate is sand.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

goldfish will eat anything they can find, including baby catfish. You'll have to remove the fry before they leave the cave as they will be eaten on sight. A few may survive (as would happen in the wild), but few few.

good luck!

Haha thank you for the quick reply that's what I was expecting. I'll be sure to get them out ASAP when I get round to breeding them

This what can happen without predators and if you don't rob the nest in time.
There are about 100 albino Bushynose fry already on the loose and a double clutch of newly hatched fry still in the cave, another ~200 of them.
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That is insane!! What are you going to do with them all?

I have another question also, I tested the water today and discovered that the nitrate level is pretty high, 25ml/l. I read that Bristlenoses don't cope with high nitrates too well, and I was wondering if there was an easy solution to bringing it down? I am going to start doing water changes more frequently, and add a couple more plants, but is there anything else I can do?

25 ppm (mg/l) nitrate is "high" but I wouldn't call it dangerously high (it's roughly the same as my tap-water, and I've been using that for breeding bristlenoses for quite some time [until this Christmas when I got a RO unit to purify the water]).

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Mats

Oh really thanks a bunch the water I use is just aged tap water since until recently I only had goldfish. Thanks very much

Tom88 wrote:That is insane!! What are you going to do with them all?

I have another question also, I tested the water today and discovered that the nitrate level is pretty high, 25ml/l. I read that Bristlenoses don't cope with high nitrates too well, and I was wondering if there was an easy solution to bringing it down? I am going to start doing water changes more frequently, and add a couple more plants, but is there anything else I can do?

Sell them and the other 400 albino and 500 normal form of Ancistrus sp3 fry currently under my care.
Helps with the annual fish food expenses.

That's awesome! I was wandering on the genetics of bristlenose catfish, is the albino gene simple recessive?

Yes, albinism is recessive in the simple way.

I posted a photo of the batch of albino Ancistrus that were not removed in time. Today I pulled a combined spawn from the same tank because the cave was beginning to "leak" more albino Ancistrus. These are most of them:

They are really cool, I have never seen albinos for sale, is it possible that mine are maybe het? Is that quite unlikely? What do you keep the hatchlings in when you catch them?

I've got some albinos, and I don't live a million miles from you, so contact me with a PM if you want to get one or two [they are quite small at the moment].

They do turn up in shops around my area from time to time, but they are of course not as common as the brown ones [and the ones I have, I have to tell you are from the incestuous spawn of brother and sister - which isn't exactly surprising, as albinism is a heredatary "deficency" that require both parents to have the same genetical setup (on those genes, at least)].

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Mats

Excellent thanks I might have to take you up on that when mine gets a little bigger

Tom88 wrote:They are really cool, I have never seen albinos for sale, is it possible that mine are maybe het? Is that quite unlikely? What do you keep the hatchlings in when you catch them?

I just got my first spawn from a pair whose parents were Normal X Albino and I did get ~ 25% albino fry. Looks like classic Mendelian genetics apply well. It was a small spawn, as the first ones often are.

Cool 25% albino out of the blue isn't bad I only really know corn snake genetics which are pretty simple but it appears catfish are similar

Tom88 wrote:Cool 25% albino out of the blue isn't bad I only really know corn snake genetics which are pretty simple but it appears catfish are similar

Like Larry, one of my bristlenoses is a "half-albino", which is how I can get albino by crossing the off-spring.

The basic principle of genetics and breeding applies to all creatures, be it bacteria, fungus, fish, reptiles or mammals.

Of course, not all formations of inherited features are as simple as a single gene [e.g. humans have many different skin colours, and when crossed, it's not a "one or the other", but rather a "average" between the two parents]

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Mats

Yeah I was wondering if mine was het albino, but he probably isn't. If mine survives and thrives I'll probably pick up a pair of albinos and see if I can get the three of them breeding. At the moment mine has no bristles whatsoever, but he/she is only probably 2 inches long. Is it too soon to say female?

Tom88 wrote:Yeah I was wondering if mine was het albino, but he probably isn't. If mine survives and thrives I'll probably pick up a pair of albinos and see if I can get the three of them breeding. At the moment mine has no bristles whatsoever, but he/she is only probably 2 inches long. Is it too soon to say female?

Quite possibly too soon - if it reaches about 2.5-3 inches with still no bristles, then I would be more certain. Just as with other animals, some develop earlier than others, so just because someones males have bristles as 2" doesn't mean that another one won't get them at 3".

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Mats

Thanks. Just a case of waiting

Yes, unfortunately a lot of fish husbandry involves patience...

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Mats