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I have a new breeding project settling in my quarantine tank right now. On arrival I took pictures of them and tried to have a go at sexing them.
But it's quite difficult and could do with some help. I know they are not fully grown yet and they are not in breeding condition but if any one would like to help identifying their gender as good as it goes, I would greatly appreciate the input.

Fish 1




Fish 2




Fish 3




Fish 4





Fish 5




Fiah 6




Fiish 7




Fish 8




Fish 9

I think I can see at least 3 females. Any one agree?

Well I am very surprised nobody has helped yet because the pictures are all from the proper angles and are very clear which would make it very easy to do if had any idea how to sex plecos besides odontodes, Good luck!

PS: Beautiful fish!

fish 1,3,4,6 and maybe also 9 look to be male to me. but i am no expert.

a very nice group you have there! good luck with them, i hear these aren't easy to keep alive let alone breed!

Thanks Tim! Much appreciated!

So far only one was lost, so not bad at all. They are doing fine in quarantine right now, eating and behaving normal.
There are some breeding reports so there is hope And I like a good challenge

Hi Jac,
I have been meaning to email you...

I have sent you an email with heaps of photos for some sexing I did for someone the other day.

Basically fish 1 (from yours) is a male.
I like to use the cheek odontodes as the primary indicator for these fish as it can be very difficult to body shape the sex when the fish are "skinny". Not bad skinny, just not conditioned.

On a male, I have found, the cheek odontodes are always long enough to extend over the first plate and into the second plate above the pectoral fin. This can be seen clearly on the first photo on the right hand side of the fish.
On a young fish this may be just one hair (odontode)

Some of the others I could guess at, but would not be confident without the side on photo.
Fish 5 I like for a female, based on body shape, with the wide part of the body closer to the leading edge of the pectoral fin, than it is in fish 1.
Note that when in condition the female will develop a "fat" stomach, due to the heavy plates on the body not being able to expand.
My breeding colony had a male:female ratio of 5:2 which is not common for pleco's, and also the alpha male stayed as the alpha male until he died, which was odd as the younger males did not try and take over the alpha position.

Cheers

Geoff

Thank you Geoff! I was hoping you would reply
I'll get back to you as soon as I've found some time. Good night for you for now! Wish I could go back to bed....

Time for a follow up on these great fish. Sadly I did lose two out of this group but now they are fine and doing great!
About two weeks ago they surprised me with a practice round of what seemed to look like a trapping.



I didn't know what to think of it. After some hours he lost interest and the female went elsewhere.

But then yesterday I spotted them together again. This time another male but the same female.
Exactly the same behavior. Blocking the entrance, slightly fanning but other then that nothing really exciting to see.
I did feed like normal and turned out the lights for the night. I saw both of them leave the cave and feed throughout the tank.
This morning I came into the fishhouse to find them both together again Same cave, same pair, exactly the same behavior like before.





I haven't got a clue of what to think about it all. It's nothing like your "normal trapping" but it does seem to look like something
We'll see what (or may not) happens!

Well, tonight it's looking much more promising! Fingers crossed, it would be awesome and amazing if it worked out

My New Years day present

What a great present! Congratulations!

Congratulations

Congratulations Jacqueline.

What a wonderful start to the new year!

Thanks!! Awesome isn't it!!!!!

jac wrote:Thanks!! Awesome isn't it!!!!!

Freakin Awesome

Sadly the male was extremely nervous and after a day he has left the eggs behind in the cave (I did wait a few hours to see if he would go back). So time to take charge and I put the eggs in my hatchery. I first had to remove 4 dead eggs. The egg shell was extremely though and I could only break it with a small scissors and a syringe. Job done and now wait and see what day 2 will bring! The eggs are fertile and you can already see the small embryo forming inside the egg

You can do it Jac.

How big are the eggs?

I think I can I've had a lot of practice with other plec eggs over the past years so I think they'll be just fine. But still, fingers and toes crossed!!

The eggs are about 4mm. And I counted aprox 45 eggs. But a few were dead and I had to remove those.

Just wanted to thank you Geoff for all your help and advise over the mail It pays off big time!

Sharing the knowledge ....... That's what Planet Catfish is all about

Congrats! These supposedly are not easy to keep alive, never mind breeding them.
Can you post your tank info (size, set-up, filtration, etc), and your water parameters (temp, pH, etc)?

Thanks Linus_Cello, you can find all information in my breeding report (My Blogs).

Picture of the eggs, day 2. Looking great, embryo developing in eggs.

That's great. I bought a group of 5 after many failures to keep them alive and still have 3 but they have not bred for me...so I'm encouraged by this thread, since it took you almost half a year to get them going.

Day 3 for the L239 Beginni eggs. The eggshell has gone very soft and is starting to leak in one or two eggs. They are getting pretty fragile by now. The embryo inside is very active and you see a lot of movement in the eggshell. Still another 24 hours to go yet I think. Sorry for the quality of the picture, to much light...

Thanks for putting the info on your blog. I don't think I saw anything about what you were feeding these with on your blog. Am I looking at the right place?

Correct I couldn't add foods and reported the bug to Jools. He has fixed that now so when I have the time I can add the foods I give them.

For the Beginni; Viformo tabs (Sera), Plankton tabs (Sera), Spirulina tabs (Sera), Shrimp pellets (O.S.I.), frozen foods like brine shrimp, mysis, daphnia, and Repashy superfoods (Aquafarmen omnivor mix, Aquafarmen canivor mix and a 50-50 mix of Siolent green and Morningwood). I feed my fish twice a day, in the mornings only dried foods, in the evening I most times give the frozen foods.

Day 4. Three fry hatched prematurely and don't look to great but the rest are still inside the egg and going strong

Hatching day:

Very cool and thanks for documenting with such great detailed pictures. Gives me hope that some day I can do the same.

Nice one Jacqueline;-)

Sadly this is the last time I will be updating my very first spawn of Baryancistrus Beginni (L239)

For many it's the egg incubation period that gives the most problems, but for me with these special eggs that went fine, great even. The problem started straight after hatching. I think about 50% of the fry had some kind of hemorrhaging from hatching (I did not artificially help them hatch). Some had leaking yolk sacks, some had a little patch of fungus on them. I did the normal routine of water change, nothing different then when they were still in the eggs, same water everything. Some of the fry were lying on their sides and when moving they started spinning instead of wiggling. Hoping for the best I left them and went to bed. The next morning some were already dead but looking at them, they were not doing so bad after all. Or so it seemed... Did another clean up and water change. That's when I noticed they weren't doing all that good, a lot of spinners... After work I looked at them again and more were dead. From the 29 that hatched I now only had 10 left and only 6 of them looked to be reasonable (as seen on the video). I saw some of the fry making these weird movements as if they were spasming (I will upload this video too, please comment on that if you have seen it before and what it could be). I was staring to think it had to do with the waterchanges. Maybe they react to sensitive to the water changes, so I did't do a water change this morning. But coming home just now, all fry except one -who isn't looking to great- have died. So I'm pretty eager to find out were the problem lies, hoping I will have some fry to show for the next time they spawn.... It would be better if the male sticks by his brood the next time and doesn't flee the site at first sight of eggs.........



Spasming fry..... Why is this happening, what makes them do this? I want to understand so I know what to do next time.