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Despite all the bad press in the Uk recently about meeting people in reality that you met online, last night Clare and I visited Marc. Bizarrely it turns out he only lives a few blocks away and has been breeding Zebra Plecos. We had a great chat and I managed to take a few pictures of Marcs set-up and fish which I can now show you here.


Adult males (Dad below)

Dad! This is a large fish and the photo shows his interopecular odontodes welll.

These are about 12-15mm SL.

This is the spawning tank with the fry tank inside.

This is another young male

Hope you enjoy!

Jools

Nice pictures!

Will you be putting them in the Cat-e-log?

Hi

Great pictures, I'll need to get myself a digital camera to take pictures of my tanks.

I to have had success breeding Zebras. I would be interested to hear a bit more about the set up. (Filtration, tank size, water chemistry, etc.....). I was thinking about upgrading my set up as I have a spare 36?x 15?x 18? tank in the garage. My current tank is 24'x12'x15.
Are the babies in the fry tank on their own? I have just left mine in with the adults as they seem to be doing a good job of looking after them.

König Löwe wrote:Nice pictures!

Will you be putting them in the Cat-e-log?

Maybe, I'm not sure yet. We have a lot of zebra pleco pictures already! I might use some of them.

Jools

Great pics! I wish I had enough zebras to try that out!

Hi!!
hey that is pretty cool!!!
Any info about the different parameters, water, food, tank size...

Cheers
Yann

Noticed some bottles on the tank pic, shure hope he dosen't give it to the plecos

Wow, thats awesome

Chill wrote:Noticed some bottles on the tank pic, shure hope he dosen't give it to the pl*cos

Shhhhh...that's the secret in breeding Zebra Plecos.

[center]is it Knockando and Gin thjat i spot there? [/center]

And Humans! ;)

Easy wrote:

Chill wrote:Noticed some bottles on the tank pic, shure hope he dosen't give it to the pl*cos

Shhhhh...that's the secret in breeding Zebra pl*cos.

Very nice........any for sale??????????

Sorry T, not at the moment mate. As I said I'll give you first shout on the next lot. But by the looks of the growth rate it could be 4-6 months down the line. I hope that the pictures Jools took give you a good idea indication of how my tank is set up.

Thank to everyone else for their quality comments, there always good to read.
Cheers Marc

Ahhh thats your tank, I didnt realise........duhhhh.

Good luck with the breeding raising project mate!!

Hi Marc!

Your tank and fish look really great!
Could you tell us more about it???
Cheers
Yann

Hi,

I am very interested in breeding my zebra's, I have given them all sorts of caves some wooden, and another made up of slate.

I have two filters, one internal and an external along with a powerhead just to get the water moving around, i change 20% water every weekend without fail.

I am feeding them frozen krill and bllodworm, sometimes a bit of daphnia.

I have had 4 since september, two males, two females? do i need more fish?

They have seized to produce any eggs. The only thing i can think that is wrong is that i have quite a small tank, well 100 litres, and there are other fish in there too? could that be linked to the problem?

They are sharing with a number of assorted corry's , 3 brochis and 4 scissor tails.

Any help would be greatfully recieved.

I'm not sure if the water volume has much to do with it. My tank is only 70l and I've manged to breed them.

I would recommend removing the other fish though. In order for them to breed I think they have to feel totaly safe, the other fish might be disturbing them. I've also found Zebras don't compete well for food. Especially with other catfish.

much to the girl friend's distress ( she does the part water changes and i clean the filters and stuff )

I will be buying a separate tank for the zebra's - 120Litre and set it up in the spare room with just slate caves and a very fine sand substrate. Along with over kill on the filters, powerheads and air stones.

Once that has become cycled - I'm going to get 2 more zebra's just so i can be certain i have a good mix of males and females.

Im sure the eggs will be coming very soon.

As for competing for food in their present tank, mine will come out of their caves to feed, seeing off any brochis that dare get in the way. But you are rigth while theres no food in there they like to avoid their brochis or cory tank mates as much as possible.

Hi Yann,
Sorry for not responding sooner.
I'll give you the rundown on the tank set up.
It's a 48x15x18 inch tank (55 us gallons approx). Filtered by two 1600l/h powerheads attached to 4x 1inch pipes that run under the gravel to the other end, where they join up to two large sponges giving a one directional flow. As you can see from the picture.
It also has a Fluval 203 external. I use dechlorinated tap water, my water parameters are PH= 6.5, KH =3o d, GH=60, Nitrate=0, Nitrite=10mg/l approx.
Lighting is from 1x38W Interpet Triton which is on for10.5 hours a day.
The fish get a really good mix of foods: Algae wafers, pellets, bull?s heart, bloodworm, courgette?, daphnia, snails etc.
I?ve been doing water changes about 20% every four days and have upped the temp from 27 to 29, this seemed to encourage the spawning.

Anything I?ve missed?

Cheers Marc

Hi!

How important was the T° drop when you were doing the water change.
Personnally Each time I was doing a water change with T° drop I would left the heater unplugged overnight!!
Have you done the same?

Cheers
Yann

Hi Yann, sorry for not replying sooner.
The temp change i spoke of was a general increase in temp, I normally kept the fish at 27degrees but after only a week of a rise to 29 degrees the fish spawned. I would not consider leaving my heater off over night, there would likely be a drop of about 10 degrees if i did so, you've got to remember this is Scotland in the winter we are talking about. It very very cold at the moment

Cheers Marc

zebra_pl*co wrote:I will be buying a separate tank for the zebra's - 120Litre and set it up in the spare room with just slate caves and a very fine sand substrate. Along with over kill on the filters, powerheads and air stones.

It may be a good idea to set the tank up bare-bottomed. It would be easier to keep clean that way, and you wouldn't lose worms in the sand/gravel. Of course, w/o substrate you may have other problems.

Rusty

Rusty wrote:
It may be a good idea to set the tank up bare-bottomed. It would be easier to keep clean that way, and you wouldn't lose worms in the sand/gravel. Of course, w/o substrate you may have other problems.

Rusty

Hi!

If you choose the bare bottom setup, make sure to paint the outside bottom with a black paint as so the fish won't have their image to look at the bottom , it will help them settle in and avoid any stress.

Cheers
Yann

I got my tank, and it is all set up, i actually got a 70L tank in the end.

I have it running with an aqua pro 1 external filter for a 200L tank, a fluval 2 plus running with venturi device for added oxygen. I also have a rena air stone pump, with a pond air ball on it.

As for a substrate, i have gone for about 2mm of sand, with slate caves scattered around, theres enough for 6 caves, and i have 4 fish at present.

I dont think they really mind their reflections, as they have not found it a problem in the community tank, which theyve been in for 4 months or so now.

Dont worry though they are not in their new home yet, its just doing its cycle at the mo.

Thanks for all the help and advice lads !!

I guess that since we are talking about zebras, I will mention my set-up. I have a 30 gallon long, that is filled to about 3 inches from the top. It is filtered with an Emporer 400 (I think). I have it set up as a river with 2 Aquaclear 301's on one side and their intakes on the other. I have 9 zebras in there, 4 adult males, 1 female, and 4 immature which I think are 3 females, 1 male). When I orginally got the zebras, I did not know how to sex them (I still can't when they are immature). Right now there are 8 slate caves in there, but I am slowly removing them as I discover which are really used by the adult males.

Hmmm much zebra talk, so heres my bit as i posted a topic and forgot to include zebra in it.

My querry is does anyone keep zebras and not run a powerhead? I'm running a eheim 2222 and 2012 for filtration and current only.

Ronnie

They actually dont need so much current unless you're going to breed them.

im not using a powerhead in my zebra tank ? but im sure there's plenty of current in there with my 2 filters ( internal and external )

i can see there's plenty because the thermometer keeps swaying gently in the currents.

Thats comforting to know, thanks guys

More from Marcs "hatchery"... Here are newly hatched fry pics and some from a previous spawning.








Jools