L183 as first attempt at breeding Ancistrus?

[tal]

Hi all!

My LFS has let me know that they just got in some hard-to-find (here anyway) L183 babies (we're talking 3cm--they're adorable), an L-number that I've been trying to get my hands on. I saw them yesterday and they look fantastic: bright, perky, happily chowing down on zucchini & hanging out on manzanita wood. They've been in quarantine for a month so now they're ready to go.

I'm tempted to just buy around 8 of them and try my hand at breeding down the line, and I have a mature tank set-up that I could easily dedicate to this.
I've never bred plecos before, but I've kept various species over the years with great success, but I'm wondering if this is a bit much to jump into? They're too young to sex with any degree of confidence (some are showing pretty impressive bristles considering their size) and my LFS offered to sell me 6+ at trade price.

So, should I content myself with just getting one or two of these little guys or are Ancistrus in general easy enough to breed that it might be worth a try?

Thanks for your input!

(They would be going into a 70L long tank for now with a beefy external canister filter and then once they're up in size and hopefully easier to sex divvied up into 70L tanks by 'lucky couple'... though again, totally open to feedback here.)

[Jobro]

Hello,

I have a group of 6 L183 as well.

L183 are from the Rio Negro. Your water should be on the softer and acidic side. If you can provide this, breeding should not be too hard.
As a side note, zucchini will rot and decompose very fast in the warm water that the L183 require. It can be really messy to remove the remains of a zucchini from a warmwater tank. Sweet potatoe or carrots tend to hold longer and are eaten just as well and won't start stinking that soon. Though many ancistrus are supposed to be herbivores, these L183 will do better if you provide some meaty foods as well.

L181 look just like L183 when they are young. Better double check their ID. Counting the dorsalfin-rays might help. 8 rays are supposed to be L181, where L183 usually has 9-10 rays (but don't count the first(hard) ray, only the soft rays). Though L181 are beautiful fish as well.

On those, both, males and females will show bristles around the snout. Only if they have bristles up the "nose" you can be sure they are males.

Always go with the bigger group. They will be more active and lively and more confident to come out and eat.

They will take around 1.5 years for the males to start getting interested in breeding, females maybe longer.

Hope this helped you.

[tal]

That's tremendously helpful, thank you very much for taking the time to answer.

My current pH is around 6.2 so this isn't quite soft enough for them, but I can adjust that up a little with no undue stress on the current (small) community setup. I'm even more tempted to just get the whole lot (my LFS has 8 of them) and set up a species tank for them, and your comment about the bigger group might just be the impetus for me to do that.

I do like the L181s but prefer the smaller BNs, so I'll have a go at counting those dorsal rays!

[Narwhal72]

pH and water softness are not the same thing.

You need to measure your GH to see if your water is soft.

I use straight RO water for mine (purchased as L183 but are actually L181). Water has very low GH and KH but pH values are around 7-7.5.

Andy

[Jobro]

PH 6.2 should be acidic enough, especially if they are tank breed.

I don't think L181 or L183 will grow larger than 15cm TL in captivity. Most breeders I have seen are even smaller.