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Hi PlanetCatfish,

I got a batch of fry from my new Ancistrus L107/L184 about 3 weeks ago. 17 of the eggs hatched and there haven't been any problems before now. The fry are starting to die one by one.. Now is only 9 of the fry left as the fry started dying about one week ago. Is it important to threat the fry from L107/L184 in any special way?

Facts:
- The fry is kept in a breeding box which is cleaned often.
- They are fed with food especially containing protein but also spirulina.
- The pH and the hardness of the water is quiet high. pH around 7-7,5.
- A lot of aeration of the water.
- Oak leaves in the breeding box so they have something to hide behind.
- This recipe is usually a very good way for me to raise plecos (L134 etc.) but unfortunately not L107..

What is your experiences and how do you threat your L107 fry - and keep them from dying?

Hi Jacob,

"The pH and the hardness of the water is quiet high. pH around 7-7,5."

It is a true - pH is quiet high , really high, ph 6 will be better.

Thank you for your posts, Barbie and claro.

I have read a lot about the pH in articles about L107. But my group is willing to breed in tap water with a quiet high pH and high hardness. But as you say Barbie, there is a hatching problem. Today the male (again again) fertilized the eggs in the cave but after ½ day in the cave with the eggs he throw them out.. Last time he did this I took the eggs to a hang-on breeder-container and the most eggs hatched without any problems.

Today I tried to lower the pH with oak leaves, sphagnum and a 50% change of water with fresh rain water from the roof.

Parasites could be a problem!
Actually, I have L134 fry in the same small container but they are not affected at all.. Is it likely that the L107/L184 is much more sensitive than the fry from L134? And the parents to the L107/L184 don't show any visible signs of parasites..
I really hate to use medicine (poison) in my aquariums but yes, it can be the last chance if they keep dying..

What do you feed with Jacob?

Ancistrus can't handle to much protein, especially young fry.

KrisA wrote:What do you feed with Jacob?

Ancistrus can't handle to much protein, especially young fry.

Hi Kris,

One more died yesterday.. Not a good sign..

I feed them with tetra tabimin, tropical super tabin B, decapsulated brine shrimps and sometimes spirulina powder.
This recipe is normally a good (also for L183 when I breed them earlier)..

I would recommend rearing the fry in an established tank on a primarily vegetarian diet. Probably the same method Barbie has used successfully.
I think another benefit of this approach is there is less likelihood of the juveniles contracting diseases.
Herbivorous plecos need to graze continuously on a fairly low protein diet.
I wouldn't try keeping any other pleco fry with them either.
I once tried to raise about 20 L260 fry among a group of about 45 Peckoltia compta fry. They were initially all the same size but P. compta grow much more rapidly and are more dominant.
One major difference in that case was that at least both species have carnivorous dietary leanings It still wasn't good enough and I lost almost half those L260 before realizing what was happening. Oh well, live and learn.
Congratulations.
The juveniles sure are attractive.

Like apisto say, i think there's to much protein in the food you are using.

43% in the Tetra tabimin.
44% in the Tropical super tabin b.

They are much better to corydoras and hypancistrus.
I use the Tropical super tabin b for my Hypancistrus zebra.
I would recommend you to use JBL NovoFect and ohter foods with more fiber in, and lower protein.
The fiber is really needed for Ancistrus.
I used JBL novotab (43% protein) for my red ancistrus when i had them, and the fry keept dieing, after i switched to JBL Novofect the losses stopped.
Try switching the diet, hope it will work for you.

Thanks a lot for your posts.
I hope I will succeed with the other diet.

Larry: I have exactly the same experiences as young with L260 and L134 in the same tank. The L260 stopped growing completely while the L134 showed a fantastic growth of approx. 4 cm in 3½ month.

I got a batch of 17 new fry and 12 more eggs will soon hatch. The first 17 have soon used their yolk sac and are soon ready for a real diet. I will try to feed them with a vegetarian diet. All these fry are moved to another aquarium to see if it makes a difference.

I have heard a lot of people who breed the L107 about their experiences. All of them use a diet with quiet a high amount of protein. Lars Jamne from Norway told me he used meat-based pleco bits and discus bits as the primary food and vegetarian bits only 1 time each week.

This time the fishes already started to die just one week after hatching, a little time before their yolk sac was empty.
The fishes started to be bloated and started to die..

I have come to a point where I am very frustrated!!!

Barbie wrote:IME, bloating and dying is low dissolved oxygen or organics building up in the water. How warm is the tank? Did I miss that? I actually feed all sorts of high protein foods, but they all are also high fiber. NLS grow pellets were my primary fry food for a long time. Right now I use more Repashy superfood with good success, both the soilent green and spawn and grow formulas. Have we scraped any of these fry for parasites? If they were mine, I would treat for oodinium. This is exactly the type of losses I had. I had Margie scrape a newly dead fry to discover it was crawling. The adults showed no signs at all. Treating the tank stopped the problem completely.

Barbie

Thank you for your post Barbie! Very useful!
The tank is 28-29 degrees Celsius (82-84 degrees Fahrenheit)
I started a treatment yesterday of the aquarium to stop the eventual parasites - I do not see any other ways than trying that. As I had success with my first batch of fry I really don't think it is the food.
The bloating is also very weird for me as the breeding box always are kept very clean and the I didn't even start feeding them at this time (no rotten leftovers in the breeding box).

I don't think I can do that much until the next spawn. I hope it will lead to a better success the next time.
I will keep you updated.

I think the pH is the problem!

I have not had a 100% successful breed yet, but the mortality rate is not that high as it was in the start.
I have lowered the pH from 7,5 to approx. 6,2 now. Probably a little lower pH would be preferred, but the stability is very sensitive.
Yesterday did I change some water and added just a little pH minus, but suddenly the pH dropped from 6,6 to 4,2!! But by adding about 5-8 litres of tap water the calcium stabilized the aquarium at approx 6,2 in pH.

Lihn wrote:I think the pH is the problem!