 Basics | ||||||||||||||||
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| Overview | The first spawn was on Saturday 27th of February 2021. The breeding group consisted of 0 males and 0 females. Additionally, there were 10 unknown individuals present. The smallest male was at least 100mm SL and the smallest female was at least 90mm SL. The youngest adult was approximately 48 months old. The individuals were obtained from Two different LFS. | |||||||||||||||
| Feeding |
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| Water Parameters (at time of spawning) | ||||||||||||||||
| pH | 5.00 to 5.50 | |||||||||||||||
| Temperature | 25.0°C to 26.0°C | |||||||||||||||
| Current | Strong | |||||||||||||||
| Aquarium | ||||||||||||||||
| Furniture | Sand substrate, alot of drift wood, java fern and anubias. about 20-30 pleco caves in various small sizes. The smalest is just big enough to fit one in and the largest is 1.5x the length and width of the male. I put the caves next to cover to make the male feel safe and I also place them at different levels of the tank. It's all about induvidual male preference and I have had them spawn in ridiculously small caves, intended for honey comb catfish. | |||||||||||||||
| Filtration | Two eheim external filters, an airpump and one internal eheim filter. It's probably a bit too much since it's only a 170 litre tank but better safe than sorry. | |||||||||||||||
| Lighting | Two T-8 fluorescent lamps, lit for 10 hours | |||||||||||||||
| Heating | 100W heater | |||||||||||||||
| Breeding | ||||||||||||||||
| Behaviour | Normal pleco breeding behaviour, fanning etc. Females that want to breed with a male usually hang out in a nearby cave during the day, and breed with him during the night. They usually breed from late fall to late spring for me. I trigger them by lowering pH with oak leaves and freaquent cold waterchanges of 40% maybe once a week. They are also fed heavily to fatten up the adults. I suspect that in my colony of 10, only the dominant male with the most disireable cave gets to breed with the females. If you disturb them too much they wont spawn so don't go around with a flashlight every day to check for spawns. I have had males get stressed and eat all eggs after being disturbed. | |||||||||||||||
| Eggs |  There were 15 yellow eggs laid which were 3.0mm in diameter. | |||||||||||||||
| Time to hatch | 7 days Number: 15 Free swimming: 20 days | |||||||||||||||
| Segregation | Fry moved to a frybox inside the same tank two weeks after spawning took place. | |||||||||||||||
| Fry sizes | 7 days: 0mm 14 days: 0mm 21 days: 15mm | |||||||||||||||
| 7 days |  | |||||||||||||||
| 14 days |  | |||||||||||||||
| 21 days |  | |||||||||||||||
| Juvenile sizes | 1 month: 25mm 3 months: 35mm 6 months: 0mm | |||||||||||||||
| 1 month |  | |||||||||||||||
| 3 months |  | |||||||||||||||
| 6 months |  | |||||||||||||||
| Fry and juvenile feeding | Biofilm( I make sure to put in oak leafs and wood in the grow out tank), EBO spirulina paste, repashy. Sub adults get high content spirulina algee wafers and Dr. Bassleer biofish food aswell. The juveniles seem to graze alot in contrast to the adults. I don't feed fatty or meaty foods too often as I've had losses related to feeding too much of it. I have learnt the hard way that they are susceptible to bacterial infections caused by uneaten food and I make sure to only feed what they can eat. Snails and shrimp help to keep the grow out tank clean. | |||||||||||||||
