PlanetCatfish.com

I’d like to give a special thank you to pleco_breeder for his helpful advice in getting the second round of spawns triggered.

My zebra plecos have started a second round of spawning. After 10 months of continual spawning, they took off nearly 8 months. From my anecdotal research I knew 11 spawns over 10 months was a great first go around, but I didn’t expect the hiatus to last so long. My expectation was a break of 3 to 4 months.

After the first round of spawns completed, I did my typical weekly water changes for months on end, hopeful to see new spawns at any time. There were no new spawns. After talking with pleco_breeder he informed me that I needed to carry out a dry season cycle to properly condition and subsequently trigger the spawns again.

There is a skill to learning a proper dry season, and I still have a lot to learn. However, after attempting to do a 6 week dry season, one of my females fell ill at the end of week 4. Out of concern for all the fish in the tank, I stopped the dry season and started 50% RO water changes every other day for a total of three water changes. Nothing happened – no spawning activity. One week later I did another 50% RO water change. About 5 days later the zebras had spawned (it was the same male/female combo as before).

The whole process was just as nerve racking and exciting as my first set of spawns. Hopefully the zebras have another successful year. If people would like to know more specifics, I’d be happy to share.

Again, thank you pleco_breeder for your “tech support” the past three years.

Congrats and good luck.

You have no idea how rare it is that anyone shows any gratitude for help, so I want to thank you for that. It makes helping that much more enjoyable.

Larry

Congrats!!! Best of luck this year!!! Hope I can be as successful as you are!!

Very nice and congrats. What was the temperature change from the Dry season to wet season? How much degrees did you go lower when you did your water changes?

Thanks

Here is part of a PM I got in response to this thread:

"I was wondering if you could give me soem details about your spawning and dry season. Temp food pH of tap water etc. "

I'll answer the questions here.

Temperature - I hardly pay attention to temperature. My heater is very reliable and I have a temperature controller on it as well which I use as an "emergency overheat" kill switch. It is set to 86F and I leave it there.

I also rarely measure pH of my water, but out of the tap it is 7.4. RO water is 7.0. When I did the dry season I let the tank get dirty, and I am sure the pH dropped - unfortunately I didn't measure it throughout the process - that would have been interesting to track and I'll do it next time for sure.

The key to the process was slowly increasing the TDS, doing small (5-10% water changes) and letting the water become high in TDS and dissolved organics. During this time I fed my fish well - live blackworms, Repashy Meat Pie, and a dry food mix that I blend myself from high quality flake and pellet foods. The skill involved, and pleco_breeder could articulate this better than me, is: 1) letting the tank water increase in TDS and dissolved organics, 2) doing the best job possible with the feedings, and 3) preventing the tank from "crashing" due to deteriorating water quality. The last point will likely take me a long time to master - usually when my tanks get dirty, I do a very large (50% or more) water change to get back on track. This will break the dry season cycle. So trying to control the process with small water changes kind of felt like steering an oil tanker with a paddle.

The TDS question. I started with a TDS of 80, worked it up to 250 (evaporation, increased organics, and GH/KH boosters) over 3 weeks or so. When I started by rainy cycle (after week 4), I did three large RO water changes and brought it down to 70 again - over the course of 3 larges water changes ever other day. The following week, after not seeing any activity, I did another large RO water change and dropped the TDS to just below 50. They spawned a little less than a week later.

Be very careful attempting what I've outlined here - letting the water in the tank "age" also makes it unstable - increased organics and a falling pH - if you don't know what your are doing (I thought I knew what I was doing, I'm an experienced fishkeeper, but I did NOT know what I was doing) it could be lots of trouble. My tank became perilously close to disaster. You have been warned!

Approximately 5% skill, 25% good advice, and 70% luck!

The first time, it wasn't this hard....but the luck part of the equation was much higher.

Congratulations mate, and cheers for the spawning advise its helpful for those of us that are still waiting and waiting and waiting