L128 Spawn!

[stuby]

No worries..... if you check after lights off you should find the fry out a lot more than with the lights on too. They are sneaky that way! lol

Chuck

[stuby]

I am not sure about L128's as I have not had the pleasure of breeding them yet (I've breed a lot of different ones besides L128's) but some pleco fry are very sensitive to sudden changes in the water...... try adding new water slowly to the tank. I have a 5 gallon bucket I put a hole in the bottom/side and adapted a air line to. I put the bucket above the tank and put new water in the bucket..... that way it gravity feeds new water into the tank very slowly. It might be worth a try... and cost very little. All you need is... bucket, air line, air line adaptor, drill and drill bit the size of adaptor. If you want to slow it down even more you could put a valve inline too.... but I never have.

HTH and please keep us informed.
Chuck

[MarcW]

Thanks for the tip, they seem to be ok at the moment, I did a water change yesterday morning of about 75 litres and just used my normal method, a small Eheim pump from a bucket to get the water into the tank.

I do worry about temperature or water parameter changes causing them stress, i'll monitor them and be more careful next time!

As a side note I have kept adult wild caught L128 for several years and they never seem phased by big (50%) sudden water changes sometimes dropping the water temperature by as much as 10 degrees Celsius. That temperature swing is much more than normal, and was after a hot spell when the tank got up to about 32c, usually there is around a 5c drop in temperature when I do a regular change.

[stuby]

I am glad to hear they are doing well! Whatever you are doing keep it up... it seems to be working!! My advice I give everyone is when you find what works for you and your fish stick to it...... what works for one person may not always work the same for the next person and fish!

Chuck

[MarcW]

All have left the cave now, I just counted 6 hiding around the tank, there may be a couple more I can't see. They have started to get small blue spots, and appear to be growing.

I haven't target fed them, however every night there is a whole courgette cut in half along the length for the adults, which gets completely stripped of the skin, a couple blocks of Repashy, and some veg/algae tablets, as well as some small granule or flake for the tetras. So far they seem to be finding enough food.

Hopefully they will be in a good enough position for me to take some pictures soon!

[MarcW]

There are a couple pictures below, poor quality (high iso) as the tank is very dark, and they like to hide in the small gaps, plus its hard to focus on something so small, while holding a torch in the other hand!

Anyway they give you an idea, hopefully when they are slightly bigger I can transfer them to a grow out tank and get some proper pictures.

[stuby]

Beautiful little ones!! Thanks for the update!!

[MarcW]

The young still seem to be doing well, they haven't grown much at all though.

The male is sitting on his third lot of eggs now, I spotted them this morning, there seem to be 20-30 eggs, maybe laid a couple days ago.

Hopefully his parenting skills improve further and more survive from this spawn.

[stuby]

Awesome news! I am glad to hear they are still going at it and the fry are doing well!! To bad you are across the pond from me.... I would love to have some fry from your pair!

Thanks for the update and keep up the good work!!
Chuck

[MarcW]

Thanks, I'm surprised they seem to be breeding so regularly, I've not had this many broods from any type of fish before!

[MarcW]

I managed to get a couple more pictures yesterday when performing a water change.

The first is one of the young approx. 6 weeks since the eggs were laid.

This one is of the male guarding the third batch of eggs, for all three spawns it has been the same couple spawning.

[solvent123]

Hey Marc

( you sold me the l134's at sweet knowle )

Amazing news on ur l128's how's your 3rd batch geting on? Liking ur caves, did you make them your self?

Mike

[MarcW]

The third batch of eggs has just hatched into wrigglers. A few came out of the cave today so I used a turkey baster to suck them up and put back with the male.

I made all of the caves in that tank myself, from slate, I found it cheaper to buy it from a garden centre, more choice too. Just check there aren't any metal deposits in it, look for rusty streaks as clues.

The chunks I went for were mostly the size of house bricks up to about twice that size. Then split the top or bottom off, use an angle grinder to hollow out the middle then stick the top back on with aquarium safe silicone. They often broke into a few more pieces than I planned but they were easy enough to stick back together!

I used to make them from sheets of slate I made myself from blocks of slate, but I prefer the method above as it looks more natural.

I made a few sizes from what I thought were too small to what I thought was too big. It seems the one the eggs were laid was just right, as none of the other caves have been used at all by any of the other 2 males, or female in the tank. The other fish just live between the piles of slate and caves in the gaps.

[stuby]

Very nice! Thank you for the update!! I do love baby pictures!!

I've used field stone before.... I use a 12" wet/dry blade in a saw to cut the bottom and a grinder with a stone saw to hollow it out. Takes some time and work but looks nice in the tank.

Chuck

[MarcW]

While doing a water change this morning the male left the cave for a few seconds and I managed to get a picture of the wrigglers, these are from the third spawn. Looks like there are 40+ in there, originally it looked to me like there were 20-30 eggs.

[MarcW]

This morning when removing last nights courgette from the tank, I saw a few wrigglers had been kicked out, as I looked closer there were quite a few so I have collected them and put them in a floating breeder box near the filter outlet.

Previous spawns where this has happened the wrigglers have been just floating around fairly lifeless. However this time they are very energetic sucking onto the glass and rocks, I'm hoping that is a sign that more will survive this time around.

I now have 16 in the breeder box, 1 was found dead, and there are at least 2 more I couldn't get at between rocks in the tank. There are also approx. 20-25 still in the cave, which makes me think that the spawn may have been too big for the male to control and keep in the cave.

Is there anything I should do to improve the chances of the ones I'm now looking after? Previously all the ones which have been kicked out of the cave and captured by me have died within 24hrs. It looks like some have conical yolk sacs rather than round, could these be damaged? I noticed them in previous spawns too.

There are at least 4 survivors from the second spawn they are doing very well, and growing slowly.

[MarcW]

Tonight I counted 7 young from the previous spawn, they seem to be doing well, growing slowly, I've now seen them eating courgette.

6 of the young I put in the breeding box earlier have died with no obvious signs of illness, I'm wondering if it could be parasites from the parents causing the high mortality rates?

There are still a lot of young left from the third spawn, I guess they will have used up the yolk sacs in 2-3 more days, the previous young seemed to be safe and much less likely to die once they had fully absorbed their yolk. I'll update once they have reached that stage.

[MarcW]

All of the third spawn have been kicked out of the cave, most have died.

I tried an experiment as most in the floating breeder box previously pictured died, so I took a small tub and floated it in the aquarium, with an air stone, then manually changed the water every few hours. Unfortunately the mortality rate was about the same as the shop bought floating box.

There are now 2 survivors from the third spawn, 1 in the floating box, and one loose in the tank. I'm not sure why the male kicked them out, maybe they just swam out, either way from my spawns it seems the best chance of survival is when the fry stay in the cave until the yolk sac is fully absorbed.

More concerning was when doing a water change this morning one of the second spawn, (about 7 weeks old) was on the front glass and was very red around the mouth and gills, does anyone have any idea what this might be? Other than the colour it looked and behaved normally, picture below.

[MarcW]

All of the young from the third spawn have now died, I believe that the main reason was because they were kicked out/left the males cave before the yolk was absorbed, and I wasn't able to care for them properly.

Hopefully they will spawn again, I'm going to do the following to increase my chances of success, raise the cave entrance to reduce the chances of fry leaving the cave too soon, and make a proper fry trap/breeder box, which will ensure plenty of water flow through it.

The fry from the second batch appear to be doing well, I've not noticed one with red colouration as pictured above again yet.

[Jobro]

I think that you are on the right path with the high flow breeder.

The reddish looks like a bacterial issue. I know you have a pretty strong filtration but maybe something is going wrong in your tank? Or do you by any chance leave the courgette in for too long? I feel that potatoes and cucumber and zucchini are nesting grounds for bacteria when they start to rot. Maybe your filtration caught a piece of corgette and it's silently rotting in there now?
Using carrot and sweet potato seems to work better for me. Also, your fry might not really get a lot of nutrients from courgette.

How often are you doing waterchanges and at what percentages of the volume?

[MarcW]

Thanks for the reply Jobro.

I leave the courgette in overnight, for 12 hours, I haven't noticed any issues with this before, maybe the fry are more sensitive? I have tried sweet potato, red peppers and cucumber before but they don't seem interested. I've not tried carrots though, I'll try them soon.

I also feed a combination of various 'plec tablets', a couple types of Repashy foods, as well as other food for the tetras and corys I have in there. Hopefully this makes up for what nutrition they miss from the courgette.

I've noticed the fry seem to be consuming algae/bio film from the glass which I've never seen the adults do. I'm hopeful the redness has resolved itself as I haven't found any dead fry from the second spawn and can't see any with redness now.

I do a 50% water change once a week with a mixture of RO and de-chlorinated tap water, this routine has been the same since I setup this tank.

Thanks for your help.

[Jobro]

Ok, seems all good to me.

They need some time to get used to new vegetables. Try 48h with sweet potatoe and carrot. They do not rot within this time and it gives the plecos more time to try it out.

[MarcW]

I have noticed that the courgette gets soft, overnight. I'll leave the sweet potato and carrot in for a couple days to see if they will try it, rather than taking it out after one night as I have done before. Thanks for the tip.

[MarcW]

The remaining fry are still doing well, the most I have seen at once is 4, but I'm hopeful there are 6-10 in total.

They are now 30-35mm TL, I haven't yet seen any evidence of the blue edging to the fins I've seen on young L128 in the past, maybe it only comes in once they are older.

[MarcW]

I've just counted 6, fingers crossed there might be a few more hiding.

Jobro, I did leave some raw sweet potato in for 48 hours and they did eat some on the second attempt of feeding it to them, not as much as they would eat of the courgette, but I guess they have to work harder to eat the sweet potato.

[Jobro]

I think the potato would also staisfy them faster than a courgette, which is mostly only water

nice to hear that your youngsters are doing fine! How old are they by now?

[MarcW]

It has been about 3 months since the eggs were laid.

That's a good point on the sweet potato I hadn't thought of it like that, I was just looking at the amount which was eaten!

[unklebilly]

I think you mentioned this and it may be obvious but many fish as a strange survival mechanism will eat their young to make room and conserve energy for the next spawn. It sounds like that's what your crew is doing by kicking the fry out of the cave prematurely. I'd say you are on the right track by separating the fry as late as possible and raising them in the same tank. I suppose ideally you could remove the parents but that does not sound practical with your setup. I'd imagine in the wild fry like that may survive in dense vegetation. Perhaps you could simulate that with a thick patch of micro swords or the like.

[MarcW]

I was considering removing the fry or eggs, but the caves are under 3 layers of slate hiding places, and I would make a mess pulling it apart and probably squash some fry or scratch the glass! In trying to keep the tank as natural as possible, I made it harder to manage now they have bred, there are plenty of hiding spots for them in the slate piles, they seem to like it there. I'm not sure they were eaten, as I pulled out the dead fry from all the spawns.

[Jobro]

It just happens that they will kick out some eggs, if either the cave is too big or they are nervous. It's a very individual behaviour and varies on each dad.
Some people say they also kick out unviable eggs.

It also happens that a whole clutch of eggs disappears over night. Maybe the dad gives up on it and eats them all himself or he gets contested and loses the eggs to a rival. These are among the most common theories I guess.