PlanetCatfish.com

I am getting some bristlenose catfishes that I plan to breed. I am going to keep the males and females seperated for awhile and I'm going to set up a breeding tank. It will be bare except for some terracotta pots for caves to lay the eggs in. Do you think the cats will breed in there or do they need substrate and decorations to feel comfortable enough? The cats are a rarity around here so I'm going to sell them to fish stores. What do you think a good price is to sell them for??? I really have no clue and I don't wanna by gyped! Also, do the fry have any special care needs? What do they eat? Do they grow fast? Any help will be graciously accepted!

In a nutshell:

#1 they need hideouts, and at least 1 per fish. It doesn't matter if those are terracotta pots, PVC-pipe (5 cm 0) , rocks, bogwoodpieces etc. They're not fussy.

#2: best substrate is plain old sand, or a bare tank. They don't mind gravel, but if you get baby Bristles, they need clean water, and gravel can get "dirty". With sand, the dirt stays on top, where you can vacuum it with a hose. Best just a thin layer, unless you grow live plants, of course. Ancistrus loooove planted tanks!

#3 waterparameters can be almost anything, if you have the "regular" bristlenose (I call those I have Ancistrus temminki, but Ancistrus definitions are a big mess, even the big catfish honcho's in here have a tough job checking the species of those commons). Best stay somewhere in the middle with the water; pH about 7, T 22 - 26'C (someone translate this to f@hrenheit? I'm no good on that... ), hardiness not too high. Much more important is clean water! the fry won't like nitrates etc.

#4: food! the whole trick breeding those is the food! They can and do eat almost anything remotely edible varying from topnotch brands to tankmembers who ceased to be.... . Best mix is pleco-tabs (anything with spirulina is OK, but tabs are easier for them than flake), bloodworms, pieces of bogwood to chew on ( they're able to live without, but they really appreciate it), crustaceans, and lots of veggies: peas (from the freeze NOT the tincan), zucchini? ( is this courgette in the US?), cucumber, broccoli stems, spinache, algae, algae, algae and more algae.....

#5 dad BN will protect and clean (! no fungicide needed!) eggs and fry. Once the fry "swarm" they'll feed a few days on their yolk, until they get really dark and look like miniature copies of adults. the first food should be veggie! The best you can do is peas, spinache, and weighed down cucumber slices. DON'T feed artemia and stuff, until they're a few wweks old and doing fine. Too much fry die if you start feeding proteins too early. The very best is anything covered in algae; plants, or pieces from those, rocks, bogwood; anything covered in green is excellent for baby BN's. and better stick like glue to a nice 1/3 a week waterchange regime.


hmm, turned out to be a big nutshel....must be a coconut then!

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batang_mcdo,

Last time I was polite, but WHY do you keep asking questions that the answers to are easily found on the site? If you are having trouble finding it let me know.

Jools