Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

[bekateen]

As I suspected, five eggs were expelled from the male's cave last night. I siphoned four of them up and placed them in an egg tumbler inside the parents' tank (the fifth egg is moving around in the aquarium somewhere; I didn't want to disturb the tank more than necessary searching for it, so I left it in the aquarium; hopefully it doesn't get eaten by the

C141

corys). Here is a brief video of the eggs:

https://youtu.be/4pXCLUb0Nz0

One thing I noticed about the eggs from last night to this morning: Last night, the eggs had a lot of semi-transparent yolk in them, with a small blob of more pale and opaque material in the egg, somewhat submerged within the yolk (this is visible in the video). This morning when I observed the eggs in the tumbler, they were almost completely colorless (the yellow was almost entirely gone), and the small opaque blob now looked more whitish. I hope this doesn't mean the eggs are bad.

By the way, I'm amazed at how large these eggs are, relative to the size of the clown plecos! I imagine it's not very comfortable pushing those eggs out! LOL

Cheers, Eric

[racoll]

By the way, I'm amazed at how large these eggs are, relative to the size of the clown plecos! I imagine it's not very comfortable pushing those eggs out!

I think they take on a fair bit of water after they have been expelled and fertilised.

[bekateen]

I think they take on a fair bit of water after they have been expelled and fertilised.

I know that's true for the outer jelly coat. But does that occur to the actual yolky cell too? I don't know about fish, but AFAIK, that's not a big factor in frogs.

Cheers, Eric

[jac]

Congratulations
Following egg development is always interesting ;) The white blob you're seeing is the embryo forming on the yolk. It will get a tail soon and start wagging inside the egg

[bekateen]

Thanks, jac. I hope you're right about the embryo forming.

I do worry that the reason this male wasn't guarding these eggs was because they weren't fertilized or they were bad. Time will tell. And if these eggs do fail, I have plenty of reasons to keep a stiff upper lip and remain hopeful:

1. There is another couple of clowns still trapping in a second cave,
2. The knowledge that in my experience, once a fish spawns the first time, they usually do it again soon, and finally
3. The experience that several of my fish usually make bad fathers the first time they mate (my albino BN male took 4 spawns before he finally kept an entire clutch of eggs safe until hatching).

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Dang. Woke up this morning and there are no signs of eggs or fry in the tumbler. Last night, the eggs had no mold on them, so that wasn't the problem; but there were also no visible embryos inside (just the opaque areas I mentioned before). The eggs seem to have disintegrated overnight. Perhaps they weren't properly fertilized.

[bekateen]

For future readers, here are links to other threads of mine where I was asking questions about clown plecos in order to get help with this breeding project:

• Will clown plecos eat shrimp? Is raw or cooked better?
• Frozen vegetables for clown plecos?
• Do P. maccus pectoral rays turn red?

Here are some links to older threads with photographs that also addressed sexing clown plecos:

• My clown pleco doesn't look right (but as the title of this thread suggested, the OP may not have realized that the issue was sexing)
• help me sexing this L164 (note: the OP mistyped their title; within the thread they wrote L104, not L164)
• l104 breeding size/age/sexing ????
• Sexing Dwarf Clown Plec's

Here are some more old threads about setting up L104 tanks, breeding projects, and fry feeding:

• Re: L104-what to do to suit them (details in thread)
• P. Maccus - Clown Pleco Breeding
• L104 1st spawn
• Panaque maccus spawn

One of the problems I experienced trying to find these threads, and why I found some of them AFTER spawning my own clowns rather than before when I was asking "how to" questions, is that I searched the forums for "Panaqolus maccus" and "clown pleco." Yes I knew that these used to be called Panaque maccus, but I just didn't have that name in the forefront of my mind, so I didn't search for it. And I don't tend to use L numbers for species which have scientific names, so in the beginning of this thread, I didn't run searches for L104... Live and learn.

[bekateen]

A second spawn! (It took longer for these guys to get around to it than I expected). This time the dad has the eggs placed deep at the end of the cave and he's guarding them carefully. So I'm going to let him brood them naturally, and hopefully we have some little fry running around!

Here's a mystery for the ages (maybe, probably not): There are four bamboo and two PVC pipe caves in this tank. Just yesterday and the day before, I had two males each trapping females in bamboo caves. Neither of those males ended up with eggs. The eggs laid today are in a third cave, which up until today was occupied by a lonely male. I can't ID the individual males, so I don't know whether or not any cave swapping occurred between males, but I strongly doubt that occurred; it's been my observation that once a male gets in a cave he defends that cave. Go figure.

[Jobro]

Hello Eric,

Congrats on your spawning. Hope I will see that happening in my tank as well someday.
I do have 4 of those fish, too. Bought 2 juveniles some time ago which seem to be females now, at least no odontodes yet. And later I bought another 2 which were still too small to be sexed and I am hoping for at least 1 male. Maybe I will get them out of their caves later today and check for odontodes

U didn't post any updates on the first spawn. I suppose there were more than those few eggs that u put in the egg tumbler, right? what happened to them? Still in the cave with dad or all gone?

Cheers, Johannes.

[bekateen]

Thanks, Johannes. My last update from my first spawn was on 11 June, here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 20#p287203. There were no eggs remaining with the father in the cave. I never saw more than 5 eggs the first time. In this new spawn, I can't see the egg mass fully, since dad is guarding it. I know two eggs were ejected, and I'm estimating 5-10 eggs remain in the tube under dad's care. They should hatch today or tomorrow.

Truth be told, the week before my first spawn, I added three more clowns, two males 40 mm SL each with odontodes, and one female (45 mm SL). These fish were much smaller than my original fish (up to 57 mm SL), but still showed signs of sexual development. I'm thinking the addition mixed up the original social group and triggered that spawn (total 7 fish, 4 males and 3 females).

Good luck to you with your clowns. If you haven't yet read my other threads on clowns (Will clown plecos eat shrimp? Is raw or cooked better?, Frozen vegetables for clown plecos?, and Do P. maccus pectoral rays turn red?), please do. I received a lot of good advice from Shane and others that helped me get to where I am now.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. Here is a short video of dad guarding his eggs: https://youtu.be/oQ8XqibhoSg

[Jobro]

nice vid Eric, though it's kinda spooky with that gravel or whatever moving around on it's own right next to the cave all the time
I actually had to watch it twice to see if it was little fish or gravel.

Thanks for the links, I took my time reading them
I also caught my 4 clowns and took a closer look today. None of them has a brush on his tail. I assume they are still too young or all females. Biggest is about 5cm TL, smallest about 4-4.5cm TL. Interopercularodontodes were about the same size on all of them as well. No really long ones to be spotted. Will give them just some more time to develeop, i guess.

I didn't think they would lay so few eggs. I assumed the clutch would have more eggs than that. But well the plecos are tiny and the eggs are huge, so it would seem right to have less eggs in a clutch.

I hope you will be a happy pleco dad very soon!
keep us updated!
cheers, Johannes.

[bekateen]

nice vid Eric, though it's kinda spooky with that gravel or whatever moving around on it's own right next to the cave all the time ... I actually had to watch it twice to see if it was little fish or gravel.

Thanks Johannes. Sorry, the junk moving around is poop. I was due to vacuum the tank on the day I discovered the eggs. I didn't want to disturb the dad and lose another batch of eggs, so I decided to skip the cleaning last week. With 7 clowns in the tank, they make a lot of that saw dust poop. It sinks to the bottom like little pellets, then whenever a fish moves, they swirl it back into the water column and the water current (from the Hydor Koralia Nano power head) pushes the debris around the tank. I'll vaccum the poop out as soon as I think the fry are safe.

I also caught my 4 clowns and took a closer look today. None of them has a brush on his tail. I assume they are still too young or all females. Biggest is about 5cm TL, smallest about 4-4.5cm TL. Interopercularodontodes were about the same size on all of them as well. No really long ones to be spotted. Will give them just some more time to develeop, i guess.

As you can tell from the size of my fish and from the comments of others in my earlier posts on sexing these fish, around 4-4.5cm SL (not TL) should be big enough to tell male from female if they are well conditioned, and others have reported clowns spawning at that length. If your fish are only 4-5cm TL, then you've got a little more growing to do. Patience, my friend.

I didn't think they would lay so few eggs. I assumed the clutch would have more eggs than that. But well the plecos are tiny and the eggs are huge, so it would seem right to have less eggs in a clutch.

Yes the eggs are big for such little fish! In my opinion, my clowns are on the small-medium size of adulthood, so I'm confident they haven't reached their peak reproductive potential in terms of clutch size (egg count per laying). And since this is only the second spawning in the tank, I expect that my adults will start out with small clutches and I expect clutch size will increase with each subsequent spawning. In one other breeding log entry for this species (here), krazyGeoff reported 40 eggs and fry from fish only 4cm SL. So I suppose based on his data, I should have more eggs from my females, since they are over 4cm SL. However, remember, I know I lost at least two eggs that fell out of the cave, but I don't know how many other eggs might also have been lost before I discovered the spawn. Also, I haven't actually gotten a good look at the full egg clutch in the cave since dad is so protective. So maybe my estimate of 5-10 eggs is a gross under-estminate... Believe me, few things would make me happier than to find out there are 20, 30, or 40 little baby clown plecos popping out of that tube in a few days!

Cheers, Eric

[NCE12940]

Staying tuned! I retrieved the remaining one from my LFS and it appears I have 2 very *hairy* males and no females And 3 chaetostoma formosae (I think). So no luck here

[bekateen]

I see eyes and little bodies! We're getting close!

[Jobro]

Nice one! Congrats!

Looks like it's really only about 10-15 eggs. I guess numbers will go up with age of parents, as u posted before.

[bekateen]

Thanks. I just bought an infrared video camera today to experiment with recording the fish without a flashlight. Here's the first video of the dad fanning his eggs. The image is sideways because I need to rotate the camera 90 degrees in order to mount it flush with the tank glass. What is clear already is that this camera, which is not HD, doesn't produce a very clear picture. Also, it's auto focus and can't be switched to manual, so I'll have to figure out a way around that.

https://youtu.be/jBqo5bjhr0Y

Definitely a pretty useless camera for when dad is deep in the cave, but I suspect this camera would be good for catching another mom and dad during courtship when they are near the mouth of a cave overnight.

I think I'll look into getting an HD camera instead of this one. But for now, I'll experiment with this and see what I catch.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Wigglers! Time to hatch, 7 days at 80F/27C degrees. After watching the group for a few minutes, and after staring at this picture for longer than I should have, I'm starting to think that the number of fry will be around 15, maybe even beyond 20... Goodie, goodie, goodie!

[Jobro]

Really not very much to be seen on that IR-video. I can see dads tail fanning, that's about all

Congrats on the hatching! they look like eggs with tails

[bekateen]

Really not very much to be seen on that IR-video. I can see dads tail fanning, that's about all

Yeah, I know. But to be fair to the video, that's all that was happening - dad was fanning his eggs. LOL

Here's a better view of the fry. If you fast forward to the final few seconds, you'll get the best view of the mass of fry. I think there are more fry than I originally estimated.

https://youtu.be/PQRgps6VmzE

[bekateen]

Apparently dad likes parenting. The eggs hatched 9-10 days ago; dad's still keeping the fry inside his cave. And now he's sitting on a new larger egg mass:

https://youtu.be/8ok0jB6y7Rc

The next video is longer but doesn't show the older fry as well: https://youtu.be/U434w2yTrk0

Now we're cookin' with fire!

[Mol_PMB]

Great news and nice vids!
My Farlowellas are hatching this morning too

[bekateen]

Thank you, Mol_PMB, and best of luck with the Farlowellas. I enjoy following your Farlowella updates.
Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Found one of the fry, 11 days post hatching, 7 mm SL, out of the cave. All the others are hiding safely at the far back of the cave with their dad. This little one is either brave or rejected (I don't know which).

[Jobro]

Wow great!!!

Great vids, great plecos! Nothing cuter than baby plecos!

[bekateen]

Thanks, Johannes.

UPDATE: For the last few days, more and more of the first juveniles, now 15 days old, have been leaving the cave to forage. I've put some algae wafers and raw red bell pepper in the tank for the juvies to feed upon; while it's popular with my juvenile ABNs, neither the juvenile nor the adult clowns show any interest in the red bell pepper. And although someone in the tank is eating the fresh sweet potatoes, I've not observed any of the juveniles anywhere near it yet.

At the same time, dad is not as careful with the newest batch of eggs, which hatched a few days ago. Every day I find 2-3 recently hatched fry (like little bodies on a full yolk sac) sitting outside the cave. Dad still has plenty of these new fry in the cave with him, but more and more keep falling out. I can see the little fry swimming, but not moving because they are literally anchored in place by the giant yolk sac they sit upon; but at the same time, they seem to move or disappear a day later. I don't know at this time if these little fry are surviving and I'm just seeing them in different locations, or if these are newly expelled young fry from the cave and the others from earlier observations have died. I don't see any adults trying to eat the yolky fry, so I'm wondering whether or not the fry might die by bursting their yolk sacs on the gravel bed.

[bekateen]

Here's a few of the recently hatched (about 3-4 days old) fry that the dad is either kicking out of his cave or he's allowing them to escape accidentally. I'm wondering if this is due to him being a relatively young dad, so maybe he's not able yet to manage two clutches of fry at the same time?

[Mol_PMB]

Great photos and they're really cute at that stage!

[bekateen]

Here are a few hatchlings which I rescued when they escaped dad's cave. I've placed them in a fry basket inside the parents' tank. They are now 5 days old and they are just starting to get their pigmentation and stripes. These are the same fry shown in the photos above, just one day later.

https://youtu.be/NVJmYdT2gs8

[bekateen]

From viewtopic.php?f=5&t=41417:

Eric,
Your P. maccus only need wood. My breeding group produces fry non stop. They eat the driftwood and bamboo in the tank. 1-2 times per week I drop in a few earthworm sticks or algae wafers, but this probably isn't necessary. I think it is more for me than the fish. The fry are raised in the parent's tank on the same diet.
-Shane

@Shane (or to anyone else who has successfully raise clown plecos from eggs), I'm curious how well your clown pleco fry survive once their yolk sacs are consumed. Do you experience high mortality, or do you have a high rate of survival? What do you observe them to eat at this young age? What first foods do they take?

My first clutch of successful fry are now about 18 days old. As far as I could tell, all of them made it to a free swimming stage and left the dad's cave. But for the last few days, since about day 14, I see only 2-3 juvies in the tank and I'm finding dead bodies. The young just seem to get skinnier until they die. There's lots of wood (3 different types: Malaysian driftwood, manzanita, and unknown) in the tank, plus I add fresh sweet potato and algae wafers to the tank. I've seen the adults eating wood, sweet potato, and algae wafers, but I've never seen a single fry sitting on any of these surfaces, so I'm wondering if they are even eating.

Currently I also have the second clutch of fry, some in an egg basket and some still with dad. They still have lots of yolk, but I'd like to think that I can avoid another high mortality with this batch.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. Here's what the oldest fry look like now:

[Jobro]

Hey Eric, sad to hear you are finding dead bodies
i hope it will stop and some of the small ones will survive!

I think they dont find enough food. Baby plecos are sometimes too dumb to go look for food. it must be right where they are.

I dont really know about baby Panaqolus. But I did some quick research and found most of the breeders keep them separated from the parents in a small tank for better feeding or even better in a fry basket in the parents tank. I would prefer the latter solution. Young plecos dont like changes of water parameters. So keeping them in the parents tank is better. You already have your fry basket. So use it for your youngsters. Put in some wood or other shelter so they can hide. Sitting in daylight causes stress.

Feeding is, according to the german sources I found, successfully done with: fresh artemia larvea (=baby brine shrimp), pleco wafers(dont just give them algae wafers, sometimes they need protein, too), wood, peas (squashed without the peel).
As some dont feed baby brine shrimp, i guess it's not mandatory.

try to blanch the pepper before adding it. Makes it easier to chew. Though they should be able to chew wood, you never know.

try to feed them more often, keep the fry basket clean, maybe add some snails.

cheering for you Eric!!