I bought two of these from Utaka in the Netherlands. They had them labelled as Ancistrus sp. aff. pirareta which is imaginative. All they could tell me with certainty is that they are wild caught and came from Paraguay. One is clearly male already and about 7cm SL. The other is a little shorter and ...

New batch of fish, got 6 at 4cm now and they do need a new home now.

I hardly ever feed cucumber. I read an analysis and there's virtually nothing in it. Zucchini is better and they do get that at times. In general they eat what we eat.

I did notice that the fish were a bit more colourful. Also seems that maybe pumpkin needs some softening. I dropped this piece in ...

This weekend I made some pumpkin soup and out of curiosity I dropped a slice in with my ancistrus. They seemed to like the scent and were quick to taste it. I did notice it seems to disappear far less quickly than most other vegetables I feed them.
I'm now wondering if it's a good source of food ...

There is nothing wrong with red water. If it does bother you some carbon in the filter will clear it up

7.2 is perfectly acceptable to these. They are well known to thrive and breed in Dutch tap water which is usually around pH 8 and moderately hard.

In general those pH modifying products do a lot more harm than good. Don't use any rocks in the aquarium that react to vinegar and you should be fine.

If you don't have algae best advice would be to keep some veg in the tank at all times and rotate. Good chance the little guy will get his protein fix from left over flake, if not feed some of the small hikari algae wafers twice a week.

Didn't know that word yet, Amelanism, thanks!

Guess I have to wait and see then.

This little guy doesn't colour up when he's not on the sand. Wondering.. is this an albino?

The first Ancistrus Claro from last July's spawn are big enough to go to a new home. These were bred from fish bought at Aqua Ferrytale.

I'd prefer to trade for Claro from a different bloodline but will also consider swapping for juvenile Panaqolus or Peckoltia. I'm located near Schiphol airport.

How long did yours take to grow to an inch?

That's a big batch. My second clutch left the cave about a week ago. This bunch is a lot more intelligent, I'm even seeing them on the courgette already. The first clutch it took months before they figured out that vegetables are edible.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/wijnands/DSC_1744 ...

And whatever it was has stopped. The survivors have perked up and yesterday I think I saw a mating dance again.

Not strictly speaking a pleco but I know of one keeper who has a humbug catfish he bought when as a boy he started his first aquarium. He's just passed the big 40 so that fish is almost 30 years old now.

Personally I suspect that "pleco" haven't been in the hobby long enough to say anything about ...

Since my male is now guarding eggs again, is there a recommended size or age when it's safe to sell or give the fry from the first clutch away?

And a nice string of poo which is good.

I did my tank maintenance this weekend and noticed that for some reason my tank was at 25c (not entirely happy with that new eheim heater). Dropped it to 22c and did my water change. Seems to have triggered something since the male is now fanning eggs again

@James: My regular schedule is a 25% weekly. After the treatments I did a 50% change so whatever's left is pretty diluted
@Aad: Doubt it. Latest lab results from the water company are the same as they always are. Besides I use mainly RO water and what little tapwater I use I run trough a brita ...

Thanks James.

I did a 2 course treatment doing my best to vacuum well the day after but never did see any dead parasites. It's perfectly possibly that there were some and they were eaten.
Barbs, as near as I can tell, are fine, the normal drooping mustache.
I don't think the ancistrus have ...

I'm stumped, baffled and sad actually because I'm losing corydoras pygmaeus.

May 2012 my daughter bought a group of six for her nano tank. About a year later she decided she wasn't taking proper care of her tank and we transfered the fish to my big tank. A few months later I lost one because ...

Yeah, makes sense I suppose. Ah well, I'll just have to beg jac then.

What difference 2 letters make..

I meant to ask inbreeding. The adult fish I have now may or may not be related to each other, there's no way to tell. The offspring that's swimming around now certainly are related. How much of an issue is this going to be?

Since you have so much experience with them. What's your view on breeding? I know my fish came from a small scale breeder in Germany somewhere so there's a chance these might actually be related already.

That's two vastly different water readings. I think I'm just going to see what mine are going to do. The feeding tip is a good one though and appreciated. Mine have stopped arguing and the mrs now hangs out close to the cave while the male is messing around in them

One thing i did notice, and I'd ...

The tips on feeding are appreciated. I've made something like this mix with agar as a gelling agent but always fed it in blocks, never thought to scatter it.

I'd still be interested in getting one or two fish from this bloodline but I think that will involve a lot of begging :)

While I''m in the ...

A few 100????

Can you be a bit more specific on this feeding?

Something on the back of my mind says Rio Tocantins but I couldn't tell you why.

If you're interested perhaps we can swap some fry? I got mine via ferrytale who gets them from a breeder somewhere in Germany.

As are almost all Claro in Holland... So if I can I want to stay well clear of them ;-) Keeping my group as a healthy fresh unrelated bloodline.

In that case I'll be ...

Going to try this saucer idea. Recently the cave is largely ignored. This is a glazed plant saucer, right?

After the spawn last year mine haven't done anything. Seems a bit of a marital dispute with them. I see the two biggest adults often flare their cheek spines at eachother.

@Jac: Good luck ...

Bamboo wrote:You're exactly right !! But there's a limited about of " fish food " available in the hobby !

Err... no! If I pop into a shop here there's 3 major brands and 4 minor brands of food available. Add to that live and frozen fishfood and human food suitable for fish...

A combination of trapping and assasin snails is probably the best way to keep the mts under control

Or maybe some freshwater puffer fish?

Or maybe not. I think adding a fish to fix a symptom and not the root cause is a bad idea. It's lead to Pterygoplichthys in many small tanks and in the wild ...