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But no mean feat! But stilI want to get it right this time.
Last night my ABNs spawned. I sneaked into the fish room to check on my mustard spots. Switched on the moonlight bulb in their tank, but I noticed there was lots of activity going on in my adjacent ABN pairs tank. So I adjusted the moonlight bulb over the ABN tank to see what they were upto. Spawning! I observed them for a while. Then I had to become a contortionist to exit the fish room so I didn't disturb them. This morning the female is skinny, the male is fanning, I fed them and this morning, while the male left the cave for a snack I checked the cave and there's a large clutch of eggs right at the back of the cave.

First time they spawned there was another male and other fish in the tank and after a fight, dad kicked out the eggs. But now the pair are in in their own tank. I then fouled it up raising them myself artificially, as a first time for me. Also I intend to leave eggs, unless dad kicks them out, then leave fry with parents but later remove parents, as easier than the fry, to raise the fry, until they need a bigger tank. I want to give them the best chances possible. I periodically check to make sure eggs are still with dad in the cave. What else can I do to give them a good chance of a successful hatching?

Hooray! Congratulations, Teresa.

Belive it or not, I think the best approach is to not intrude, leave dad in peace.

Cheers, Eric

Just a brief check in the morning and evening to ensure that the eggs are not out on the substrate, at which time I'll also feed them and the Mustard spots, so far he's actually doing a very good job at being dad, and with no other fish or interference I think he'll do very well this time. And hoping that maybe the Mustard spots will learn something from all the activities in the tank next door. First fish to breed in the fish room, but probably ABNs are not a first or a last to in a fishroom. Lol

Congrats! I have no advice(with no experience) but keep up the good work.

Thanks, hoping I do a better job this time, if i need to. Presently leaving dad to get on with it, as long as he's keeping the eggs in the cave, is probably the best thing to do

Your plan sounds okay - check the "tank" for expelled eggs. Of course it's okay to peek in to tube from time to time, but there is risk to that. If you stress the dad he might eject his eggs from the cave. But just looking around the tank is obviously less invasive than looking straight into the cave with a torch.

Realize that with BNs, it takes about 5 days to hatch, and about another 5 days for fry to use up their yolk, so you may be waiting up to a week and a half before you see babies around the tank. In the meantime, if you see a couple of fry out of the tank, perhaps accidentally expelled from the cave, you can attempt to suck them up with a siphon (or turkey baster if they're small enough to fin in its hole) and move the to a fry net suspended in dad's aquarium.

Again, good luck, Eric

Thanks Eric, there's eggs in the cave, that's all I really need to know, so I'll check for wrigglers towards the end of the week. But keep an eye out for eggs etc anywhere but inside the cave. Dads doing really well I think the altercation with the second male i rehomed, spooked him the first time. I'm expecting some degree of success this time, so I'm planning in advance and getting supplies for the fry care. For once fry have absorbed the egg sacs, I've bought some spiriluna powder, veggies also will be offered, a small ammount of protiens-what is best? Then once fry are eating I'll remove the parents, I think this is safer than netting the babies, then raise the babies until they need a grow out tank. Does this seem to be a good plan? That is of course provided that it works out.

Hi Teresa,

The parents can safely be kept with the babies. No need to rehome either. I fed my babies what I fed the parents.

Cheers, Eric

During the days after the first spawning there was another male that got nasty with dad so I rehomed him at the time. Then I put the remaining pair in a tank on their own. I dont plan to part with them just yet. But as babies and parents will be ok in the same tank i will keep them in the same tank, at least until their growth is not risking overstocking the tank.

Just an FYI re pulling fry. With plecos the easiest way to pull all the fry is to pull the cave with the dad and fry still in it. the goal is to wait until they are almost free swimming. You just cover the cave mouth with a net and then move it to the growout tank. When the dad boots the kids, you move the dad and cave back to the spawning tank.

I also use the baster on accidentally ejected eggs or wigglers, But I squirt them back into the cave rather than using a trap. A good way to minimize the accidental ejections of eggs/fry is to elevate the front of the cave so it is inclined slightly downwards towards the back end.

Happy fry rearing. Pleco fry are so dang cute and I agree with eric that they will eat the same things the adults do.

Just been in to check and settle them down early for the night, in most of the pleco breeding tanks the lights go off relatively early in the evening, then feeding time. The eggs are definitely still in the cave, though dad wasn't deep inside fanning but then he wasn't this morning either, and had eaten also, but he is continually, consistantly fanning. Mums been hiding in the wood above the cave, he then starts chasing as if in the spawning last night. Is it possible she still has some eggs left and its time for round 2 so to speak. She also wasn't as skinny as I expected this morning. Just wondering...

Dad's booted about fifteen eggs out, but a good ammount are still inside the cave. Out with the fry raiser airstones etc again, but I'm not allowing the eggs as much agitation as i did before. I think i overdone it last time. Could it be he's actually doing a good job by kicking out unviable ones to protect the rest he's still fanning from fungus?

Two thumbs up on a great spawn. Mustard Spots are such an awesome pleco.

Im hoping the ABNs next door will teach em a thing or two about spawning, Mustard spots not been tank bred yet, seeing eggs in the net breeder may just be an incentive. If it works, then at this rate, I'll have ABNs in a tank next door to all my plecos and strike it lucky!

Dad's booted out some more eggs, but there's still eggs around 40 inside the cave. As before around 30 in the fry raiser airstones etc. Still haven't been able to find out anywhere, although I've been trying to, if he rejecting unviable eggs. And if that's the case, is there anything else I can do to prevent more eggs becoming unviable, and therefore being rejected by the male.

Unviable eggs will turn off color. If you have some Ramshorn snails, now is the time to add them to your eggs in the egg container/basket.

And don't worry so much about the egg rejection. Remember, your dad is a relatively new dad and he's going to screw up with his early broods. There are only two things I know you can do to reduce the risk that he kicks out future eggs: (1) Disturb him as little as possible, and (2) Make sure the mouth of his cave isn't tilted downward. If the cave is tipped down, even with dad and eggs inside, I would recommend you get a small flat stone or similar object, lift the mouth of the cave, and place the stone under the cave to elevate the entrance slightly.

Cheers, Eric

Only useless bladder snails in another tank! Dad just keeps on fanning non stop, even despite him losing track of a few eggs, he's doing well. Which makes me think he's possibly just separating dud ones. They dont look off colour. I would be tempted to try to put them back in the cave, but he might get stressed and reject all of them.

Seems to be very faint dots inside the eggs. I've tilted the cave he's still continuing to fan.

Congrats! But don't worry. You will have continues spawns every few weeks from here on. I had to stop my orange BNs by splitting them up. They wouldn't stop reproducing.

You and Daddy-BN will get plenty of chances to gain experience with breeding.

Dads still got eggs in the cave and constantly fanning away, i have some in the fry net with airstones, some have small dots, but i think dads doing better than me.

Keep going!

I'm just hoping dad does! He's doing a really good job. The eggs I've got the dots were very faint last night, but clearer today, but pale in colour. I can almost guarantee that his will hatch first, the first batch i had the airstones caused them to go round like a washing machine lol, feel sorry for them having to watch me do this to thier offspring. This time I'm taking a much more gentle approach. Also the female's not left the spot above the cave, probably seeing how he does. I'm quite impressed how his little fins are going non stop and he's been getting even better at it since the spawning.

Jobro wrote:Congrats! But don't worry. You will have continues spawns every few weeks from here on. I had to stop my orange BNs by splitting them up. They wouldn't stop reproducing.

You and Daddy-BN will get plenty of chances to gain experience with breeding.

Agree. I have 2 pair of standard BN/ABN, 1 in my L204 tank and 1 in my Q-tank. Right now I have approximately 200-250 fry in boxes just from the past 2 or 3 months from these 2 pairs. Not to mention the 50-100 I have in a grow out tank that are almost ready to go to the lfs. The male in my Q-tank is on eggs again and the one in my L204 tank will be soon as I emptied his cave a week ago and his female is extra wide.

The first time or two your BN spawn is exciting, but if you are not intending to breed them for a purpose you'll quickly realize that you'll need to split the sexes.

Just to get some pleco breeding practice in before (hopefully) my L397s start. I agree wouldnt want to be overrun with lots of ABN babies, but i wouldn't part with my adults, though possibly separate them.

Went to check on ABNs this morning, found a pile of eggs on substrate again, most of the shells were broken so thought they'd possibly hatched, I even thought I'd seen one fry moving from front to back inside the cave. Just went back dad had left cave, the cave was completely empty. No signs of fry anywhere else in the tank, and no other fish in there. Any thoughts on what might have gonge wrong here?

I guess I was lucky. My ABN spawned for the first time about two weeks ago. They are in my unheated community tank -- the day temp is about 72-75F from the room temperature and the lights in the tank. I was mildly interested but have other, non-catfish, breeding projects going on so I did not make any special efforts with the eggs. I figured the male could try to handle everything and if he failed it would be ok because I really don't have the room for more baby fish at the moment.

About eight days after spawning, I noticed movement near the front of the cave. The father was still taking care of guarding the cave though so the other fish could not get near the entrance. That changed on the next day when there were many babies around and on the cave. (I was surprised how big they were). I thought about siphoning them into a net or a livebearer breeding trap to keep them safe, but I was going on a 4-day trip and did not think it would be fair to burden the person who was coming in to feed my fish with babies who have special dietary needs. So I kept them in the community tank. Unfortunately, I also noticed the Rams actively hunting the babies. There are still some hiding in the tank moving among the rockwork, but I rarely see them and I have no idea how many are left. I'll leave them be for now and decide what to do with them when they get bigger.

I still have eggs in the centre of the clump I found that looked as if a substantial amount had hatched, if they hatch today then possibly there was fry. But as I cant find any in the tank, with no other fish, then my only deduction if there were fry is maybe the parents ate them, although I've not ever heard of this occuring.

tomgiammarco wrote:the day temp is about 72-75F

I also noticed the Rams actively hunting the babies

i don't want to spoil your aquaristic efforts, but if you are talking about Microgeophagus Ramirezi, aka german blue ram, you should really consider higher temperatures. 82°F should be a minimum for those. They may take it for some time, but I guess they won't like it.



@Pleconut
Sorry to hear about the loss.
That's really strange. My orange BNs had their first spawn in a community tank with cichlids and they didn't even use a cave, just a crevice between some small pieces of slate, the dad didn't even fit in there. Still I found some baby fry in the tank, though non of them survived for more than a week.

Next spawn was in a tank with cherry shrimp and endler guppies. No eggs dropped from the cave, so many babies hatched... two spawns later I was covered in babies and had to split the parents.

Maybe your dad lacks some talent or your cave is too big? Don't be discouraged, I'm sure it will work out sooner or later. And no, BNs don't eat their babies. No need to worry there. Hang in there. It's going to work out eventually.

Thanks Jobro. There was around 80 eggs laid in total, I can't believe that every single one would be infertile so I may still get fry. But since the first spawn around 3 weeks ago but they hardly ate as they were so fixated on spawning again, moreso the male that chased the female so much that she hardly ate. I'm now thinking of putting the female in another tank, feeding her up really well and then reintroducing the male in a couple of weeks time. With potentially 80 young the bigger tank is probably needed anyway. Does this sound like a good plan?

Hi Teresa,

Sorry for your loss. Jobro is right, just keep trying. The cave size may or may not be the issue, but if you have an extra cave of a different size (my ABNs spawned in both a 1-inch and a 1.5-inch diameter plastic pipe, capped at one end; they fit better together in the bigger cave, and ejected eggs in the smaller one), then it can't hurt to add one or more.

Again patience is the game here. Also, I don't think it's necessary yet to separate them for conditioning. Even if they seem a little distracted, you can still condition them together.

If the eggs in your basket haven't fungused yet, they may well be perfectly good. Depending on temperature, hatching around day five after laying.

Good luck,
Eric