L333 Pleco's Sexing and Questions

[ippielb]

Had these plecos for over a year now, possibly 2 and half. Looking for some outside opinions on the sexes of my plecos.


Pleco #1 (I think it's a male)




Pleco #2 (i think it's a female)




Also my other question is, the blue eyes. It appears to be a cloudy eye. Is that how they normally are? My water quality has always been 0ammonia/0nitrite/and under 30 nitrate, except when i went away to work for a couple months, twice. Which my water quality may have suffered as i got my parents to take care of my tank.

I am trying to breed these pleco's, i have around 5 pieces of driftwood in my tank, plants. And i have a log cave thing for them that they can both fit into.


Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Temperature is around 81*F
PH is around 7.5-8.0
GH or KH was around 260-280 i cant remember which one.

Waterchanges once a week around 20% with 75% RO water, and 25% tap water(well water)

Tank is a 40 gallon bow front
black sand/argonite underlay
filtration is Eheim 2213 classic, and a Eheim ECCO Pro 2234
Furnishings quite a few plants, couple pieces of shale/rock, a rock archway, and a ceramic log/cave thing.

Other tank mates blue phantom plecos, 6 pepper cory, 13 cardinal tetras, 3 bolivian rams, 6 oto catfish, 4 american flagfish, and 2 synodontis petricola dwarf catfish.

I had a 29 gallon tall tank that was set up for 16 years. Got it off classifieds. Had my eheim 2213 on that tank for 4 years, then when i got this 40 gallon tank and got the extra eheim ecco pro. I have them hooked up together, with one pushing into the other.

My last new fish i added was a blue phantom pleco.
I feed the fish wardley shrimp pellets, frozen adult brine shrimp, fluval tetra food, and spiralina flake/wafer. Usually twice a day.

[Barbie]

They are probably a pair. Not easy to tell from these pics. Water quality and crashing pH are usually responsible for eyes like that. Make sure they have a cave that the male can hold the female in that's long, not wide. Then do a 50% water change with cool RO water. The next day, do another. The day after that, one more time. The fish will handle it. I usually shoot for dropping the temp as much as 10 degrees. The first few times can be pretty intimidating, but it does work ;). IF they don't spawn within a week or two, go back to regular water changes with water that is only mixed half and half with RO or even more tap water. That way, when you do the big water change, you get more fluctuation.

Barbie

[leisure_man]

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[ippielb]

So it is agreeable that my assumptions are that pleco 1 is a male, and pleco 2 is female?

I have not been too dedicated to try and get them to breed, but i will try and fatten them up.

When i do try to feed them, they hide in the driftwood basically 100% of the day. So it is hard to target them while feeding. What's a way to encourage them to be more social. I'd love it if I could hand feed them like I are people feed their fish. What food do they LOVE, I woul go out and buy some to help encourage them.

[ippielb]

Just like to get another update, I still have the fish. Still in the same tank. Now tank mates have changed, couple discus, couple Bolivian rams, couple otocinculus catfish, couple, corys.

Water changes done every other day, 20%, with cool distilled water with added minerals, tank is heavyily planted, lots of driftwood.

Feeding is twice a day, blood worms, brine shrimp cubes.

Temperature 82*
P.H. 7.0

I have still yet got them to breed. I'm debating on taking them out and putting them into their own 10 gallon to try and get them to spawn.

Any tips?

[TwoTankAmin]

A couple of thoughts here. I like the idea of their own tank, but I would go for a 15 gal over a 10.

I would go bare bottom or a thin sand layer, no plants, wood and caves. You only need a light for working on the tank as long as there is daylight in the room.

I would also change your entire routine in terms of parameters. Using 75/25 all the time leaves almost no room for softer water. As barbie noted a key to this all is change. Without knowing your well paramaters it is hard to suggest specifics. But I can explain the process to follow.

You need to start with a dry season. This is not something that means a week or two, it requires a couple of months at least, imo. During this time you should be raising the TDS (get a digital tester- they cost under $25) and the temp. Your goal is close to 90 F before you do the rainy season as Barb described. As you can see you will be dropping the temp and the TDS markedly which is what usually triggers them. It really helps a lot to do the rainy onset so it coincides with the arrival of a rain or snow storm. The barometric pressure changes that go with this are the first trigger as they signal the softer, cooler water about to come.

As you lead into the onset of the rainy season, you should start to boost the protein and fat content of what you are feeding the fish and this should persist after you onset the rainy season. Diet is really crucial to spawning. Live foods are best. But coming in a close second are some of the Repashy foods and frozen foods. I use these as I don't do much live any more.

What really matters here in the end are that the dry season is long enough and that the parameters are most important in terms of their change more than the absolute levels involved. A drop in TDS from 250 ppm to 125 works as does one from 100 to 40 or from 350 to 200. Diet is as important. The least important of the 3 factors is the temperature change. I prefer to keep my Xingu fish in the low 80s F most of the time. They only get "hot" water when they won't spawn without a good push on all fronts.

Despite all of the above, there is no guarantee it will work. Fish seem to spawn when they think it is time, not on our schedule. The best we can do is nothing to discourage it and, when that is not enough, what will encourage it.

As always the above is my opinion and what has worked for me. Others may do things differently with great success. In the end, for each of us it is discovering what works in our set-ups and then using it

[ippielb]

Here's a water test from about a year ago on my well water.


And here's one I did yesterday, on my well water.


The only tank I can available right now is a 10g, or a 29 gallon tall which are only different by a shy amount, maybe inch in length and width. My other tanks are a 55 and a 70 gallon. Which aren't really available at the moment, ones got sand and salt in it. The other is bare with nothing in it but it's too big to put anywhere without a stand.