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I've had success with breeding BN plecos and would like to try something else too. I saw some Hypancistrus, specifically the snowball pleco. How easy are they to breed, and are any of the hypancistrus easier than others to achieve spawning and fry?

Thanks.

Barb

I haven't bred them myself, but say we have a scale 1-10, where 1 being guppies and other such that require absolutely no convincing to breed, and 10 being "haven't been bred and hardly known how they breed.

On that scale, I'd put Ancistrus sp(3) at 2, and Hypancistrus spp in general around 4. Same as Peckoltia. The hardest part is getting a male and a female and good water conditions.

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Mats

The answer to your question is going to be very subjective.
I have been trying to breed any Hypancistrus for almost 3 years and haven't succeeded yet unless L134 ends up being classified as one. Those took me 2 years of trying before they spawned. I consider breeding wild Blue Discus much easier than a Hypancistrus spp. Yet I think some who have had success with breeding Hypancistrus spp would consider breeding wild Blue Discus far more difficult.
I have spawned tank raised Neon Tetras several dozen times but have yet to raise a single fry to an adult. On the other hand, I have spawned and raised 3 wild caught Copella spp and 2 Nannostomus spp which are theoretically about as difficult as wild Neon tetras.

You really don't know how difficult a species is to breed until you try to breed them many times, assuming a spp has a reputation for being difficult. I had to try many times before I was able to raise a large batch of White Clouds. I bred 3 different pairs of wild Discus before I finally raised White Clouds. I have bred and raised many wild caught Apistogramma species, Corydoras spp and dozens of popular Tetra species successfully. I have raised over 150 species of Killiefish but I haven't been successful with the most often recommended "beginners species', Nothobranchius guentheri or Simpsonichthys whitei. Yet I have bred and raised over a half dozen species each belonging to each genus that are considered far more difficult.

Just pick some Hypancistrus spp that have been bred in captivity many times and take a long and patient approach and hope for the best. You never know, you may succeed on your first attempt. My personal experience has been that the "hard to breed" fish proved easier than the "beginners species." You just can't know how things will go for you until you try.

Hi,

I would like to second Larry:
For myself, I adopted the guide line: "any fish is difficult until you bred it". And once you really understood how it works, it´s easy to reproduce and the species becomes "simple".
Regarding Hypancistrus, I would tend to say that they are relatively easy as compared to other catfish, since they do not require any fooling around with water. It´s just a question of patience and being able to leave them alone: in the beginning, I actually tried to make my Hypancistrus spawn and almost always failed. But I now realized that leaving them alone is the best trigger and at least for me, it makes them spawn regularly.

Cheers, Sandor