Breeding L270

[jac]

Hi,

As I was looking up for some more information on breeding L270 I saw there was little to read.
So maybe I can help with my story on breeding my L270 so far.

I got 4 L270 in march last year. Still very small, about 4cm TL. I guess they were about 6 months old. Sadly 2 died suddenly and I was left with 2. They were kept in a grow tank for all my young Lnumbers. Untill they suddenly spawned on 27th of februari this year. So I had one female and one male.

Here some pictures of both fish:

Male on the right, female left


Male on the left, female on the right


Male head


Female head


There first attempt contained 7 eggs. He kept the eggs in his cave for 4 days and when they started hatching he knocked them out. I tried to save the eggs and fry but failled myself. The yolksack's burst and the fry died shortly after. I don't really know why the sack's burst maybe because the fry hatched to soon, premature?? Never had this with my other fry.

Here some pictures of the eggs I managed to save


The fry only survived a day or so. I hope to do better next time!

Now he has a new batch of eggs. So maybe I can update this tread with some pictures of fry and juveniles

More information breeding conditions:

Temperature: 29-30 degrees celcius
PH: 7,1
Nitrates: <5 as I work with nitrate filters
Tank size: 1 meter by 40cm by 40cm
Filtration: large biological filter.
Water flow: medium, no strong current
Cave size: he has selected a large cave, 5cm diameter, 15cm long. He also has 2 medium cave's but doesn't use them for spawning.

Please feel free to enter more information if you want.
Hope this helps

Greets Jacqueline

[Suckermouth]

Informative. I have some questions for you though. I haven't read your L66 breeding topic, so forgive me if there are redundant questions.

What kind of water were you using? Do use RO water? What is the water hardness?

How large are your fish now? How do the fish compare in size to your L66? How do the eggs compare to your L66 in size?

What kind of water change schedule and feeding regimen did you have for growing out the fish? I'm curious if this differs from Larry; I know your fish are a different L number but it's interesting that they are breeding at younger ages than Larry has estimated on his own Hypancistrus.

I'll be watching this post!

[MatsP]

Could you e-mail the pictures to me, so I could add them to the Cat-eLog.

--
Mats

[jac]

Informative. I have some questions for you though. I haven't read your L66 breeding topic, so forgive me if there are redundant questions.

What kind of water were you using? Do use RO water? What is the water hardness?

How large are your fish now? How do the fish compare in size to your L66? How do the eggs compare to your L66 in size?

What kind of water change schedule and feeding regimen did you have for growing out the fish? I'm curious if this differs from Larry; I know your fish are a different L number but it's interesting that they are breeding at younger ages than Larry has estimated on his own Hypancistrus.

I'll be watching this post!

Hi,

I use "normal" tap water, no RO water needed here. Hardness is KH 3. Microsiemens is around 270-300.
The L270 are now about 8cm TL. My L66 are fairly old and messure up to 12-14 cm females slightly smaller than the males. The eggs of the L270 are a little smaller, as are the larvea. But as I said, that may be because the eggs hatched premature.

I feed a great variety of frozen foods and live blood worms (ones a week). Brine shrimp, mysis, mussles, krill and black worms but also in the morning a feed them pellets Viformo from Sera and Shrimp pellets from O.S.I.. Ones a week I give them a slice of courgette, except the L46 and L260 they won't eat greens. Skipping feeding a day is also good.

I change the water ones a week for 75% and during the week I'll clean the tank for poo and refill with cold water. Adding up I'll have changed the water a 100% during one week.

Mostly I see my fish spawning just before I have to change the water 75%. I don't know exactly why this is, maybe the conductivity is at it's lowest then. I'll start checking this to see if that is the case.

[apistomaster]

I better stop generalizing so much about Genera breeding ages and stay at the species level.
I wouldn't have expected your L270 would begin spawning at such a young age.
There is probably more documentation about the breeding age of Hypancistrus zebra than any others in the genus and I do not recall seeing anything about H. zebra breeding at less than 3 years. I think most everything that applies to H. zebra may be applied to Hypancistrus sp. L260. I have been pleasantly surprised that my 2 year old F1 L134 have bred successfully already but they grow at breakneck speeds compared to similar sized Hypancistrus spp. I don't think a 2 year old L333 or L66 would be able to breed at only 2 years old.
Jac, you did leave out a detail that has some bearing on this question. You stated how long you have had your L270 but I saw nothing stating if they are tank raised and of known age or wild fish. If they were wild caught I think it isn't unreasonable to add one year to the time line.

I also feed my fish quite a bit of live food. I maintain a pool outdoors which provides me with live blood worms(Chironomid larvae) all year long except the few weeks each winter when it freezes over 2-3 inches thick. But to be honest, I reserve most of those I can harvest for selected Apistogramma breeders and my Black Darter Tetras(Poeciliocharax weitzmani) since the Black Darters have little interest in non-living foods. I do provide my plecos live California Black Worms in cereal bowls to keep too many from escaping into the substrate. My plecos get mainly earth worm sticks, frozen blood worms and some Spirulina Sticks, These foods have been sufficient to get good growth and breeding results. I use a KISS approach as much as possible for every thing I keep/breed and that is especially true of the foods I use. My Discus are feed quite a bit of home made frozen beef heart blend but I think that food should be used in moderation when it comes to plecos. My current Discus are all wild fish but they acquired a taste for the earth worm sticks quickly. I am expecting an order of 16 F1 Blue Discus this week and they will be easily trained to take the earthworm sticks. Since I keep plecos and discus together commonality of foods is convenient.

[Suckermouth]

So you're saying you feed them twice a day? Do the fish come out during the day to feed?

Wow, I didn't know these species of Hypancistrus grew so large! That is awesome. I just looked up L333 and they get even bigger! I am shocked; I assumed large sizes was restricted to H. inspector, but this completely throws off my idea of the genus.

I think you are probably okay with the size of the eggs and larvae; I am not on top of fish reproduction, but I'm pretty sure that egg size is often not variable within a fish species. It also supports the idea that Hypancistrus differ in reproductive mode. It is interesting that L270 seems to grow quickly to an adult size and has small eggs relative to L066 which grows large and has large eggs and large spawns. This is somewhat counterintuitive; normally you imagine small animals having larger spawns and bigger animals spending more per young (ie. mice have many young and elephants have very few). However, if L270 are similar to L260 and L046 in having small adult sizes and small spawns (despite having fast growth!), then perhaps it's not all that unexpected. Forgive me, I'm just brainstorming science to myself!

You also have a very rigorous water changing schedule, and now I know what I need to do for my Hypancistrus to try to get them growing. Your hardness is what I've got here so I'm getting more confident in my own local water. Gonna go see which pet stores sell the gallon size Stress Coat!

[jac]

Jac, you did leave out a detail that has some bearing on this question. You stated how long you have had your L270 but I saw nothing stating if they are tank raised and of known age or wild fish. If they were wild caught I think it isn't unreasonable to add one year to the time line.

Here is a post of the L270 when I first got them:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 13&t=27831

[apistomaster]

I think they are pretty close to 3 years old.

[jac]

I think they are pretty close to 3 years old.

I have to disagree with you Larry. I can't imagine the tiny juvenile on the picture would be 2 years old and messure only 4cm.
My L46 juveniles are now 4cm and just over a year old and I have L174 juveniles of 9 months messuring around 4cm. These would be very slow growing fish. I would guess they would be around 5-6cm over another year.

If I manage to rais my own fry I can guess how old the breeders were at 4cm.

[jac]

So far so good for the new dad. As the fry are hatching from today, he's keeping all his fry in his cave! And that's great seen as this is only his second spawn.
To bad for me and you. Because he is doing such a good job I'm not going to disturb him for pictures. Maybe he will kick some fry out later and then I will take some pictures of them for documentation.

If all goes well and the fry are free swimming I will make some pictures

[jac]

So you're saying you feed them twice a day? Do the fish come out during the day to feed?

Yes, I feed my fish most times twice a day. Ones in the early morning and then late at night. But sometimes I don't feed them at all, that's to give them some peace. I mostly do that when I see they are getting ready to spawn.
They don't come out to feed when it's still light outside or if the lights are still on. During the day they are all in there caves or under stones and wood.

[jac]

I spoke to soon 3 baby's have been kicked out so far. I've put them in a seperate breeding tank. I hope these will survive

Here are some pictures:

Just hatched

[apistomaster]

I feed mine twice a day most of the time and also skip a day now and When i have fry running around the breeding tank they come right out to eat in the light but I rarely see my adults eat. I just try to add enough food at night on most nights to be sure they are fed.
So they kicked out some fry, Jac, or did you decide to raise the larvae separate from the male?
I hate it when a brood gets ejected for some reason because i like to be a lazy breeder who prefers the fish do all the hard stuff. Sometimes they don't give you a choice. I have had ejected larvae still manage to survive in the breeding tank without any assistance. It goes to show how resilient they are. L270 are a pretty species and one from Brazil so kudos for helping to keep another Brazilian Hypancistrus species going for the hobby.

[Luka]

First of all, congratulation on your spawns.
It is possible that your L270 are young, I have my F1 generation female that spawned at 18 months of age.
She might have spawned even younger, she just didn`t has suitable male to spawn with.

[jac]

Photo update of the fry. I didn't manage to get the same quality pictures this time, sorry for that.

1 Day old, no pigmentation yet


2 Days old, starting to get some pigment starting from the head


3Days old, fully pigmented body


Seeing these fry devellop I think they grow much the same as my other Hypancistrus. I do find my L201 fry grow more quickly than L66 fry wich take a few days longer to fully consume the yolksack.
Disturbinly I did find one fry wich was deformed. I don't know why, never had this before with my other fry. Hoping that the others, still in de cave with the male, are all ok.

Here a picture of the deformed one. I don't know what to do with this one....

[jac]

The L270 are going great. Never had such fine fish to breed from as these except maybe my L66. I'm having spawns every 4 weeks with a nice count of eggs and fry. No deformed fry anymore, that maybe was the cause of my own interception by putting them in a separate breeding container.... Dad is taking care of his own brood until fry are free swimming in the breeding tank.

Here some fry pictures. They are difficult to spot and even harder to take pictures of. This was my best shot



Fry between the wood and the cave


Again but now there is one of the latest fry on the bottom near the head of a juvi L66


Dad is sitting on a batch of eggs again right now

[andywoolloo]

wow, nice! I have one of these and always looking for another at the fish store. pretty.

[jac]

Thanks Andy

[jac]

Some more pictures of today:

[Liquid_Pyro]

Those are gorgeous looking fish, Congrats!

[jac]

Thank you

[Suckermouth]

Woah, is that spotted guy also an L270? That's quite some variation in pattern.

[plecoboy]

I've bred a number of hypans and it seems to me that L270 fry grow faster than other hypan fry. Has anyone else noticed this ?

[jac]

Woah, is that spotted guy also an L270? That's quite some variation in pattern.

No There are also 11 juvenile L174 in there
These are over a year old but grow very slowly. The L270 youngsters are already catching up at 3 months old.

[jac]

I've bred a number of hypans and it seems to me that L270 fry grow faster than other hypan fry. Has anyone else noticed this ?

I'm breeding different hypancistrus and see some differents in growing rate. My L201 for instance grow faster then the L66 fry. L270 is my third breeding species so far and the oldest are now 3 months old. Also breeding L340 (first batch of eggs went wrong, no fry yet but seeing the fish starting to get ready for a 2de spawn) and got my first batch of eggs from the L260 2 days ago

L46 growth seems quick compared to L174 juveniles

[jac]

Today I collected some fry out of the breeding tank to transfer to a growing up tank. Falling more in love each time I handle these beautiful fish. Parents are coloring darker and have a beautiful pattern, juveniles are awsome I think
The oldest are now 6 months old and messure around 4cm, so that proofs that when I first got my L270 they were about 6 months old too.

Here are some pictures of today









Fry are of different age, from a few weeks to 6 months.

[andywoolloo]

beauties!