Home-made pleco spawning caves

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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by flh1200 »

Hello Teresa & Eric,
Håvard Støre Andresen was really one of the pioneers in this field along with the fellas from back2nature (Joel Malmström) http://backtonature.se/about/crew/.
In the past couple of years the influence of panta rhei as well as Benjamin Hamann had quite an Impact here in europe.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH5h9T ... O_X5VMExKw
Farid (forum member) has done also some quite amazing work
http://veloofahren.ch/Aquarium/selfmade.html
and there are many more (Google is amazing when it comes to that :- )

For me the the fascination of aquaristic is to be able to have nature at home and watch fishes in their natural habitat - if you have a fish store or you are a commercial breeder I can understand that it is unpractical to furnish your fish tanks with backwalls (try to get a pleco out of that :(( )

I personally have collected hundreds of underwater pictures from those habitats and enjoy collecting stones/rocks as well as branches in nature and then recreate nature at home - unfortunately I have to watch the weight of my tanks carefully as I live in a building that is more then 120 years old and I do not want to end up in the cellar ... :ymblushing: - that is why I use artifacts out of nature in combination with styrofoam and tyle cement........................

Cheers
Max
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

So would, obviously, would be more practical if you were keeping plecos if the purpose wasn't for a breeding project although with a decent natural background-they might.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

And a few more. This time I think I did a better job making the against-the-wall, background style cave complex. It's not finished yet; when it dries more, I'll use carving tools to texture it. But in general, I'm much happier with this one than the one I made yesterday.

The square cave with the nipped corner reminds me of a sopaipilla. Now all I need is some oil for deep-frying and a squirt bottle filled with honey. Yum! :YMDAYDREAM:
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Hi Max, Thanks for the additional info. Wow, your housing building leaves something to be desired, doesn't it? Why didn't the original builders make the structure stronger? (Obviously they didn't plan ahead! :))) Well the fact that you have this problem is a testament to your talent at tank aquascaping!

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

Hi Eric, I found this info page on another forum:
http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3194
It seems the caves you've been making are much more preferred, according to what's written. Keep up the good work!
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Thanks for the link, Teresa.

My favorite part of that essay is the part where the author compares the home-made caves to looking like "something you just pooped out." LOL

I did like the author's emphasis on the benefits of overhanging ledges above the caves. Several of these most recent caves I made have built-in overhangs above the entrance.

I must say that I disagree with him though on the issue of water current. Although I'm sure it doesn't matter for some species, I suspect it's really important for others. But I suppose that's just a hunch of mine.

Also, I discovered if you use Google images to search for the phrase "caves inurl:plecoplanet.com" (but without quotes around it), you will find lots of images of alternative-shape and alternative-construction caves, including some made from solid oak doors which have been drilled out. Interesting.

Cheers, Eric

P.S., I'm meeting with the artist tomorrow to drop off these most recent caves for firing. Fingers crossed they don't break in the kiln!
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

Good luck with the firing, keep updating!
Thanks Teresa
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

Those overhanging ledges, I'm wondering if other ledges on the side of the cave, for example, could provide the female a place to wait for the male to let her in.
Thanks Teresa
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

How's the progress going with the caves Eric?
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Still waiting for the artist to fire them in his kiln. He charges me almost nothing to fire the caves for me, as long as I'm willing to wait for him to fill the kiln with other projects. Then he just wedges my caves in on the side and does everything at once.

While I greatly appreciate the arrangement, I admit I am getting itchy, eager to get the caves back and put them to use. =p~
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

That pleco wall idea... err I didn't actually have, lol. I'm thinking of making one for my new mustard spots
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

I'm hoping it's a hit with at least one of my pleco species. On the positive side, it may be an effective form of high-density housing, as long as territoriality isn't a problem. But as pointed out by TTA on the previous page of this thread, the drawback to these walls is you can't pull out just one cave if you need to isolate a dad with eggs. Also, you can't rearrange them in relation to each other if placement needs to change. Time will tell, hopefully for the better. :-)
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

With just one pair, I'm hoping, but time will tell. I have loads of straight roots i bought, initially for my L397 tank but with 8 of them i agree a structure like this would be totally impractical if they were breeding. For the Mustard spots there would be a removable cave for the male but it would appear to blend in. And lots of hidouts for the female lots of branches roots ect joined in but branching out from the wall. They'd have the substrate virtually free. Now I've got to build it, and get them to good health.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

The last caves are back from the kiln. Miraculously, they all survived the firing process without breaking apart.

I say miraculously because the night before I was scheduled to take them to be fired, I did some retouching to their finishes, and two of them (most importantly the 3-cave textured wall unit) fractured into multiple large pieces. I wetted the dry pieces and used some fresh clay to stick the pieces back together, then oven-dried them for two hours at 175F to remove as much water as possible (since, AFAIK, wet clay can't easily go straight into a kiln). When that was over, small surface cracks had formed where the original fractures had broken, but the pieces did stay together in my home oven. I showed these to the artist the next day, and he was confident the pieces would break again during firing... but they didn't! Hooray! :YMPARTY:

Here are the pieces. I've placed the textured 3-cave wall unit in my 20 Gal for my mustard spot plecos. I put some of the smaller caves and one hollow stone in my 10 Gal for my Hemiancistrus guahiborum. In the tank photos, the water may look dirty because I had to disturb the rocks and sand to make room for all these caves.

Unlike children being served home-made macaroni and cheese instead of Kraft mac & cheese, let's hope that my plecos appreciate my effort and use these caves to make babies! :-BD :)

Cheers, Eric
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ABOVE: The 3-cave textured wall unit in the 20 Gal tank
ABOVE: The 3-cave textured wall unit in the 20 Gal tank
Edited_ImageEasyImageEditor_20160218_7.jpg
ABOVE RIGHT: I know, that three-cave rounded wall unit is butt-ugly! It looks like a stack of turds!
ABOVE RIGHT: I know, that three-cave rounded wall unit is butt-ugly! It looks like a stack of turds!
Edited_ImageEasyImageEditor_20160218_9.jpg
Edited_ImageEasyImageEditor_20160218_11.jpg
Last edited by bekateen on 19 Feb 2016, 00:19, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

Good luck it would be really cool to find out one day that plecos spawned in the caves you are making, you never know maybe you could then start a business. The place i get my caves from advertise their caves as "proven spawning caves" one of mine spawned in one, My ABNs so i bought more, no luck so far, also I'm wondering how my plecos will get on with the caves @Mol_PMB is making.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

I've got the drill bit today! Might have a chance to get to the workshop soon - tomorrow I'm busy at the CSG auction...
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Mol_PMB wrote:I've got the drill bit today! Might have a chance to get to the workshop soon - tomorrow I'm busy at the CSG auction...
Hey Paul,

If you have time, put that drill bit to work ASAP and make some caves today, then sell them at tomorrow's CSG auction if you are allowed. ;-)

I mentioned to my local aquarium society that I might bring a few of the caves I just made to our next big auction in March, and in less than three hours I had multiple people knocking at my door (figuratively), asking me to make more of my caves for them (since I'm keeping some of the caves I made for my own tanks, I don't currently have very many to sell at the next auction).

In my experience, even though there are a number of commercial internet sources for manufactured caves (e.g., plecocaves.com), these caves usually aren't readily available at a lot of LFSs - I've only seen pleco caves for sale in ONE local fish store in the last four years (that was at WetSpot Tropical Fish in Oregon, and their selection was limited in size and number). So if you can make some good caves, they might be very popular commodity at the CSG auction!

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

I haven't got enough wood in stock to make more than a few, and I'm busy!
What I need to do is to get some more tree branches and dry them out. Then I can make some more next season.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

Not any of the LFS, I go to regularly sell pleco caves, but I did donate some caves to the one I worked at for some catfish that came in that would otherwise hide behind the heaters. Wooden caves are difficult to get, I bought the last in stock, of the online retailer, I know of. But they are expensive, and when needed in large numbers, the cost does add up. So learning to make my own will help a lot.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

The 3-cave textured wall unit is being put to good use: Both a mustard spot and one of my un-ID'd Hypans have simultaneously taken up residence. Now if my mustard spots would just get around to some hanky-panky.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by pleconut »

I hope that they do.

GOOD LUCK!
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

I have just spent an hour making a prototype Panaqulos cave.

I started with a hardwood tree branch about 3.5" diameter and cut a length 6.5" long on my bench saw. I then found that the diameter was too big to fit in my machine vice, so I used the bench saw to cut two flats on it at one end. This also made it much easier to grip well in the vice. In a 'production' version the blank could be made a bit longer, so the part with these flats could be cut off at the end.
pleco_cave_8.jpg
Then I clamped the piece of wood in the machine vice on my milling machine bed, and set up a 2" Forstner bit in my collet. I used this setup to drill the hole. Quite frequently I had to pause and hoover up the sawdust, especially as the hole got deeper.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

I was unsure whether the collet would fit in the hole, but it did. Luckily Teresa specified a 2" hole and the collet holder is 50mm!
pleco_cave_3.jpg
So I kept drilling the hole as far as I could go
pleco_cave_4.jpg
And ended up with a completed cave, a little rough round the edges as it's a prototype, but functional.
pleco_cave_7.jpg
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

Now, there's a limitation with the current setup. I can't drill the hole deeper than 5.25".
pleco_cave_5.jpg
The drill bit I bought isn't as long as it looked on the photo on ebay, and the total length from the bottom of the bit to the shaft bearing of the milling machine is only 5.25".
pleco_cave_6.jpg
Teresa specified a 5.5" depth so I'm just a little short (no sniggering now...)
I don't feel comfortable trying to clamp the bit half-in and half-out of the collet as it's taking pretty big forces drilling the hole.
I haven't yet looked to see if longer drill bits are available in this size.
So that's where I'm up to so far.

If I were to go into 'production' (maybe a batch of 20 or so) what would people be willing to pay for these?
Cheers,
Paul
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

Damn! Just realised I mixed up my O and U in that stupid genus name. Whoever came up with that spelling? Sorry!
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Thanks Paul, for sharing. Very nice (although I never imagined using a mill - I thought this would be accomplished with a 1/2-inch hand drill and a 16 inch long drill-bit... your way is probably safer b-) ).
Mol_PMB wrote:Damn! Just realised I mixed up my O and U in that stupid genus name. Whoever came up with that spelling? Sorry!
I think the origin of the name Panaqolus is explained elsewhere on this site, possibly by Jools or Shane... To answer your question, the name was created by somebody fixated on speaking Latin (yeah, a scientist) trying to co-opt a local South American name (Panaque) into a formally acceptable scientific name.

... oh, yeah, here it is: Panaquito: a standardising common name?

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

Thanks Eric :)
When I made my own smaller caves I did as you describe but even for a 1" hole it was not a very controlled process. I did enlarge one of the holes by boring it out on a big lathe at work which worked OK.

With a 2" hole I decided it should be done properly, and would be within the capability of my own mill.

The next lot will be made slightly longer to start with so that I can cut off the bit with the flats afterwards. I'm still not sure about how best to make the hole longer - that may require more investment.

Also I might strip the bark. Not sure about that yet.
Paul
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Mol_PMB wrote:When I made my own smaller caves I did as you describe but even for a 1" hole it was not a very controlled process. I did enlarge one of the holes by boring it out on a big lathe at work which worked OK.

With a 2" hole I decided it should be done properly, and would be within the capability of my own mill.
The largest drill bits I've seen locally are 1.5" diameter. I think that's about the limit for drilling caves with a hand drill.

Cheers, Eric
Last edited by bekateen on 05 Mar 2016, 05:13, edited 1 time in total.
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bekateen
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Mol_PMB wrote:And ended up with a completed cave, a little rough round the edges
A "little rough around the edges" is probably safe for Panaqolus, wouldn't it be? They are wood eaters after all, and they will probably remodel the home a little bit with some hearty chewing, right? :-)
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mol_PMB »

Yes, definitely. All my previous (smaller) caves have been enlarged by the fish as they grow.

There aren't any sharp edges inside, just a bit of surface roughness in parts of the bore. They'll soon smooth that out.
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