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On August 12th, I was surprised to realize that there were some L236 hatchlings hanging around in my tank. I hadn't noticed the spawning, but when discussing my tank in Tank Talk, some users had suggested that they were about 4 weeks old, so it means that today they are about 2 and a half months old.
The fry are growing well and quickly, much more than I could if I fed them directly in a small separate tank. This means that they found enough food on their own. Algae and biofilm probably contributed to this, in addition to the food waste I give to the adults of course.

last week a new spawning occurred, I was away from home for 5 days, so I didn't see them mating with my own eyes, but I immediately noticed the male ventilating the eggs and a female full of bites, so this time I was able to trace with good certainty who the parents are. Unfortunately the male spat out the eggs (there were over 25), from the color I imagine they were no more than 24/48 hours old.
I picked the bunch and placed it in a floating plastic tray with a porous stone inside.
Everything was going well, but two days ago I unfortunately damaged the bunch, losing about half of the eggs, in an attempt to remove the only egg that had grown moldy. Lack of experience. Yesterday all the eggs hatched, there are about ten that have survived at the moment.
I have no experience in raising fry, it's the first time in my life, so any help and advice will be very useful to me. Thanks in advance
Mum and dad. Both are just a year old, amazing that they bred so soon, I thought it would take longer.
These are a couple of videos of the babies dating back to the previous playback. I managed to count 7 (4 with the Super White pattern and 3 Basic pattern), but there are many hiding places and there could even be more

August 12th This little one is my favorite, I think it will become a beautiful intense yellow when it grows up

That's really cool. Congratulations! I've read that the beautiful color patterns don't fix well genetically, but it's nice to see your baby with such a strikingly nice pattern.

As far as raising hatchlings, it's not too difficult but disasters do still occur. I'd leave them in their hatching container. Feed a mix of flake foods (algae flakes, omnivore flakes) and a little of either freeze-dried worms or frozen baby brine shrimp. Feed often, but keep their container clean by removing uneaten foods once every day or two. Because you may be feeding a lot, do extra water changes.

Good luck.
Eric

Nice-

My experience with 236, 173 and 236 sw is that their young all tend to look super white to start, then they morph. This has led me to advise buyers that unless they know their source very well, it is safer to buy them when bigger and one can be certain of what the fish might be. While I have not spawned them I would bet that some of the other B&W hypancistrus fry can look like super whites as well.

In your initial post yor fish look to have the yellowing sometime seen in 236. Or is that due to lighting and/or surroundings?

Also are you certain of their age. My experience is the first spawn from my 236 (both types) is more like at 1.75 years. They grow fast but they also seem to start spawning at much less than their adult size compared to zebras or 173.

bekateen wrote: ↑27 Sep 2023, 15:35 That's really cool. Congratulations! I've read that the beautiful color patterns don't fix well genetically, but it's nice to see your baby with such a strikingly nice pattern.

Exactly. For this reason I chose to have a mix of all the colors in my breeding group in the tank. Because in any case the births would have been mixed, even if for example I had only bred those that we commercially call Super White, their offspring would also have been born with a normal percentage (Basic) and a yellow percentage.

bekateen wrote: ↑27 Sep 2023, 15:35 As far as raising hatchlings, it's not too difficult but disasters do still occur. I'd leave them in their hatching container. Feed a mix of flake foods (algae flakes, omnivore flakes) and a little of either freeze-dried worms or frozen baby brine shrimp. Feed often, but keep their container clean by removing uneaten foods once every day or two. Because you may be feeding a lot, do extra water changes.

Good luck.
Eric

Thanks for the advice, I'll do exactly as you say. I've already budgeted to go from one water change a week to two. Although perhaps this will not be the clutch that I will be able to complete, because I only have 8 babies left with the yolk sac (a shame because there were between 25 and 30 eggs). Maybe 8 fry is too few to hope to be able to raise them. Unfortunately I made mistakes due to inexperience and above all the method of the plastic tray with the porous stone doesn't convince me. These days I'm going to buy a hatchery, I'm sure that next time it will be better

TwoTankAmin wrote: ↑27 Sep 2023, 22:18 Nice-

My experience with 236, 173 and 236 sw is that their young all tend to look super white to start, then they morph. This has led me to advise buyers that unless they know their source very well, it is safer to buy them when bigger and one can be certain of what the fish might be. While I have not spawned them I would bet that some of the other B&W hypancistrus fry can look like super whites as well.

Thanks for replying, just yesterday I happened to read your article on the L236, L046 and L173.
I have some experience with the colors of L236, because I started less than a year ago with this species, buying all the very small fish, because the adults were really too expensive for me at that time. In my little ones' current size, I can pretty easily tell a regular L236 from one with a lot of white. As you say, the percentage of white must be very high, because as the fish grows, the black becomes more and more in percentage, the fundamental criterion in choosing small fish was the percentage of white, not the pattern.

TwoTankAmin wrote: ↑27 Sep 2023, 22:18 In your initial post yor fish look to have the yellowing sometime seen in 236. Or is that due to lighting and/or surroundings?

That's right, both parents of this brood are yellow, I have to say I almost prefer the color yellow to white, so I chose to buy a good portion of my batch in yellow and black.
Then I saw that yellow is very easy to form in the fish I buy from my dealer, the male of this hatch for example was sold to me as "Super White", but after a few months, the white changed to yellow. I honestly have no idea why, but I like it, so it's fine. Also because here the yellow L236s are considered rarer and cost even more than the white ones.

TwoTankAmin wrote: ↑27 Sep 2023, 22:18 Also are you certain of their age. My experience is the first spawn from my 236 (both types) is more like at 1.75 years. They grow fast but they also seem to start spawning at much less than their adult size compared to zebras or 173.

Yes yes, I'm absolutely sure, I started buying them in November, they were very small and only 4 months old. So the first reproduction arrived in July, exactly one year after their birth. This one which occurred in September is therefore one year and two months old.
Look how small (and white) this specimen was that I bought in November, less than a year ago
These two photos instead show the same fish six months apart. Impressive how quickly he grew isn't it? Now, 10 months later, he is obviously even bigger, even if his growth has slowed down, he is no longer as fast as in the first months, probably because he is getting closer and closer to adult size. Honestly, I was surprised too. I must admit that I have always given them a lot of food, at least twice a day and especially since I discovered that their favorite food is shelled and blanched peas, I have been able to offer them large quantities without fearing for the quality of the water, this because vegetables pollute less than food in granules or tabs.

The fry have yet to finish absorbing the yolk sac, but it wasn't a lucky hatch, last night another one died and currently only 6 are left alive.
The offspring born directly in the tank a few months ago are doing better, they are all growing well, they are quite active and move around the entire tank. They are quite solitary, only yesterday for the first time I saw two puppies interacting, staging a small fight. But normally they make sure to never meet.

Lovely, such a great result!

Today finally all the fry have absorbed the yolk sac and I'm starting to feed.
I managed to take some photos of the ones born in the main tank, they should be around three months old.

This morning, when the lights were still off, I noticed that there was a fry on the glass (see photo). I looked in the floating plastic tank and saw that there was only one little one left, so 5 had escaped during the night, jumping into the main tank. Obviously I released the last fry left in the tank. Now let's hope they are strong and smart enough to survive in the main tank.
I couldn't imagine that the little ones were so good at jumping, I had never read it in any report on Hypancistrus. Anyway lesson learned, next time I'll put a lid on.
I only started feeding the fry yesterday, too bad they immediately ran away the first night ...

Instead here is a photo of the mother and her baby from the spawning previous to this on

How long does it take to get the yellow color I wonder? I'm really digging the look of the adults. Nice work!

papgar wrote: ↑18 Oct 2023, 21:14 How long does it take to get the yellow color I wonder? I'm really digging the look of the adults. Nice work!

The yellow increases in intensity as they grow, so the moment when the yellow becomes stronger and brighter than ever comes when the fish reaches adulthood.
When they are small, however, they all have a white background, but around 1 inches (2,5 cm) you can start to notice that some specimens tend to darken the color, which will become yellow as they grow.
For this reason, when I buy a young yellow specimen, I don't give much importance to how bright the yellow is, because I know that it will improve as it grows anyway.

I love the yellow variant. I know a few breeders here that are breeding the super white variants but for me the yellow line is way prettier!

Good luck Emanuel with raising the fry, I hope most of them will survive!

The babies seem to do well in the main tank. I get to see them regularly, so it's going well

Thats really cool Emanuel! All the best raising them!

The 6 babies all seem to be doing well. Yesterday I returned home after six days of absence, after feeding, I began to observe the tank for a long time and I saw all six of them. Then two of them started arguing a bit

Ah, another thing: in this period there was a lot of rain, which is known to stimulate reproduction, so I preferred to lower the temperature to 25 C° (77°F) to avoid further spawining. My tank is very full of small L236s, it's better if they don't reproduce for a period, so I can manage everything better.

Well, as I haven't said, I just saw a male trap a female and release her when the spawining was finished. Let's see if she will be able to take care of the egg cluster

Speaking of this latest spawning, I wanted to talk about how important it is to always have some escort males ready to mate, replacing the alpha male.
I have a very large female, until now the only one big and strong enough to mate with her was the 13 cm (5 inch) alpha male. Now it happened that as soon as I lowered the temperature, the female stayed for two days near the male's den, trying to enter it, but he wouldn't allow it. Probably because he had not yet recovered from the last mating, where at the end of October he remained defending the eggs, without ever eating, for two weeks. The female, on the other hand, had not mated for at least three months, so she desperately needed to release her eggs, I know this for sure, because in September I already lost a female with a belly full of eggs because there was no male available to mate. with her. I attach the photo.
After two days of trying, she went to another smaller male, who immediately let her enter her den and spawning occurred. If he hadn't been there ready, I probably would have lost this female too, who by now had a truly enormous belly full of eggs.
After I lost a female in September, I rushed to buy two more adult males, I must say that I made the right choice. Now for 3 breeding females, I have 7 adult males, each of them has a cave and hypothetically they are of breeding size, although 2 however have not yet managed to reproduce, despite being stronger and bigger than the male who has just reproduced.

This is my first experience with the reproduction of loricarids and therefore I am not in a position to give advice, but I understood this immediately and I really feel like underlining it. A 1 to 1 M and F ratio is very risky, and even 2 M and 1 F is not good, more is needed. Also because I never see the males fighting, they are quite peaceful, I don't see any contraindications to having many males in the same tank. Then not all males are able to reproduce, I have a large male for example who has never reproduced until now, even though he is certainly very high up in the hierarchies. So when you have a breeding group, you must also take into account that every now and then a "poor" male may occur.

Photo 1. In the foreground the alpha male who however this time did not want to reproduce, the tail behind him belongs to the smaller male, who instead has reproduced and is defending and ventilating the eggs. He was not happy that the dominant male was near his den.

Photo 2. The female died in September due to too much pressure from the eggs inside her belly.

Update
These days the latest births are starting to show up often, they are really tiny compared to previous births. In the video you can initially see the comparison with one born from the spawning at the end of September, then later in the video there are larger specimens, born even earlier.

For now the temperature is fixed at 25° C (77° F) and yet the L236 continue to spawn without stopping.
I never take eggs from caves, I always leave it to nature and I must say that it is always exciting to discover some new little one emerging from the rocks.

Everything was going wonderfully, the new little ones that I had posted above in the video were really numerous, they came out of every nook and cranny, once I managed to count 20 of them all together, so there were probably even more. All the other guests were bursting with health, in short everything was perfect in the aquarium, then unfortunately the unexpected happened.
I purchased a group of 11 Melanotaenia praecox to add some liveliness to the tank. A few days after their insertion, I noticed that some white dots had appeared on some of them (not all). I didn't worry, because within a few days they were gone and that seemed to be the end of it. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, after a couple of weeks disaster struck: I saw a Hypancistrus zebra more and more covered in fungi every day, I didn't intervene immediately there either, I monitored the situation, which however quickly worsened. One day, when I returned home, I saw all the cardinals completely covered in white dots, as well as in some Hypancistrus L236, where some specimens were starting to show signs of distress. I immediately ordered two medicines: Esha 2000 and Esha Exit, the problem is that they took 5 days to arrive. In the meantime the situation has degenerated, the Hypancistrus have contracted, in addition to the white dots, a bad bacteriosis and some also fungi. Certainly by inserting the Melanotaenie the so-called bacterial cross occurred which infected the Hypancistrus.
While I waited for the medicine to arrive, I helplessly observed the disaster in the tank, every day more suffering Hypancistrus went onto the glass at the top of the water. They didn't react to anything, not to me approaching the tank or to the food. I immediately stopped feeding them because almost no one went for food anymore. The most affected were the small Hypancistrus, those born in my tank, but as the days passed there were more and more adults near the surface. At a certain point the little ones from the last brood started to die, it was terrible to approach the tank and see them one after the other suddenly turn belly up and be carried away by the current. In a very short time, all the offspring from the last reproduction died. In the meantime, two H. zebra have also died, as have a Corydoras C23 and many cardinals. Then finally the medicines arrived and after a couple of days from the dosage the situation started to improve. Dots and mushrooms began to disappear, all the Hypancistrus returned to the bottom and slowly started feeding again. In the end even the smaller and worse-off specimens, about which I had no hope, seem to have recovered. I breathed a big sigh of relief, the worst really seems to be over, although I don't want to claim victory too soon. Unfortunately, however, in the end an adult Hypancistrus L236 also died, the father of the last brood, the male with whom all the females recently wanted to reproduce, around his den there were always 4/5 females competing for him, despite the rest of the tank there are at least 5 other adult males (and bigger than him) ready to reproduce. It's a great disappointment, also because all her babies from the last brood have died, so I don't even have the consolation of being able to raise the "heirs". A great shame, I was very fond of it, it was the first L236 I bought, I saw it grow from 3 cm until it became an adult and reproduced.
The lesson I learned is that I must always have some medicine at home, because given the effectiveness it had despite the situation being truly desperate, with white spots and bacteria in a very advanced state, if I had had it available immediately from the first day , maybe I would have been able to control the epidemic from the start and save all the fish. Lesson learned, but sometimes this hobby can be really frustrating. Now we really hope that no more surprises arrive.

Hi emanuel,

Sorry for your loss. Your experience is one that I suspect all of us have had at one time or another (myself just a few months ago).

May things go better in the future,
Eric

After the disaster, finally some happy news: a few days ago a little L236 appeared. It is not the result of a new mating, but is a survivor of the last spawn, when I had instead given everyone up for dead. I had counted over 20 little ones, there were probably more, and it was terrible to see them die one after the other. Finally the father had also died (even more sad), so I thought I had lost the entire generation. So a month after that disaster, this little one emerged, who given his size, is certainly the only survivor of that spawn. The little one promises well, he seems fit and has an excellent percentage of white. Sometimes all is not lost...

Hi all,

emanuel wrote: ↑28 Sep 2023, 08:48 ...... That's right, both parents of this brood are yellow, I have to say I almost prefer the color yellow to white, so I chose to buy a good portion of my batch in yellow and black.
Then I saw that yellow is very easy to form in the fish I buy from my dealer, the male of this hatch for example was sold to me as "Super White", but after a few months, the white changed to yellow. I honestly have no idea why, but I like it, so it's fine.

Entirely anecdotal, but I raised some fry and they all became yellow. The ones some-one else raised (from the same batch) all remained white, so I'm going to say it is diet / environment based. Mine had a pretty varied diet (including Red Bell Pepper, Astaxanthin containing granules etc.) and were kept in a planted tank, but I don't know if either of those factors were relevant.

cheers Darrel

I haven't updated the topic for a while...
There's little news... Everything is going quite well, the reproductions follow one another periodically.
This female, on the other hand, I like more and more, even if she is not a prized "super yellow", but a normal "basic", I really like her pattern. However, she is becoming huge, now she is bigger than any male I have in the tank, this is a problem, because no male like that is big enough and strong enough to be able to reproduce with her.