Eric, seeing as it was a suggestion that you made, in the other two recent Ancistrus threads, gave you a mention, rather than putting it across as my own idea for a solution.:-) No harm, no foul. Besides, I didn't come up with that as an original idea; it's something that someone taught me in the 1...

Excellent! Between Teresa and Jools, I think my job is done here! LOL

Marlonneke, good luck. Cheers, Eric

Okay, thanks for explaining. Maybe next time!

Cheers, Eric

Hi Jools, I noticed recently that you've added an enhancement to the BLOG data pages where we have some fields at the top of the page to record multiple spawns. This is a wonderful addition, thank you... And now I confess my ignorance: How do we use these fields (inside the red circle on the image b...

Has anyone fed edamame beans (in hull or dehulled) to their plecos? Do the plecos like them? Are they too rich a protein source for vegetarian plecos when you're trying to condition them for spawning? Would you still be at risk of causing bloat, like can happen when over-feeding vegetarian plecos wi...

[The advice] should work but the restricted space may be a problem & any changes may result in a temporary truce & aggression resurfaces later on I fully agree. I meant my words not as a guaranteed solution but a possibility to try, with the fallback being rehome one or the other (or get a ...

Um how do I cover enough bottom foraging ground for the corydoras if i add shelter? If i rehome corydoras, would pygmy corydoras be tolerated since they are more midwater(though I doubt it)? This is the challenge in a tank that size. If your Ancistrus is aggressive no matter how you furnish the tan...

You'd think that hunger would be a pretty strong motivator, but not when the alternative is spawning: in some frog species, males can easily lose 10% of their body weight while courting females. And females lose a lot more, although that analysis is sort of cheating when you consider most of the wei...

Although I don't have lots of experience with how different species of plecos behave when courting, from the few spp. I've kept, it is my impression that spawning plecos (and courting plecos) do eat less than plecos doing everyday things (not courting/spawning). Remember, most fish (including our pl...

Mol_PMB wrote:There are hundreds of them at Pier Aquatics at the moment.

I think this member is in the USA, and if so, Pier Aquatics won't be any help. But, I do see these occasionally even in our big-box pet stores (as much as I don't like their fish). They are also sold on Aquabid.com.

Cheers, Eric

If you do decide to remove the battered pleco, let it heal, and then you want to reintroduce it to the same tank, I advise you do it in this way: Remove wounded fish to a different tank and allow it time to heal its fins. Based on what I've seen in other injured fish, I see no reason here why you sh...

Since your tank is a "high" design and has a smaller footprint than a typical 15 gal, then maybe so - as Mol_PMB suggested, the tank bottom might be too crowded with bottom-dwelling fish. But if that option is problematic for you (e.g., you don't have another tank to move the Ancistrus to)...

Wow, awesome job! (both to you and to your banjos).

Does your Ancistrus use the cave? Is your Ancistrus male or female? If your Ancistrus is a common bristle nose, then at 7cm (total length, I assume) it may not be full grown but it's not a juvenile, it's an adult; my male albino BN first spawned at that size, and my female was only a little larger. ...

Does your ancistrus have any caves to hide in (preferably more than 1)?

Agreed about the hard work of our admins. But don't hesitate to suggest ideas when you have them. If you think about it, the Suggestions forum itself is a type of wish list - Members have ideas and they file them in the forum. Admins can weigh the workload to develop vs. merits (costs and benefits),...

The wish list seems a good idea, one of the reasons that comes to mind is if someone is breeding a fish and its on someone else's list the are able to sell the fish to them. Teresa, that's an interesting extension of the wish list concept - a veritable "match-dot-com" of breeders and buye...

Let me be clear that I've never used actinic or black lights on aquaria, so I am not specifically endorsing one or the other over conventional red or blue LEDs for dim light effects. The idea of floating cover (plants, etc) is a good one as long as the floating plants don't get sucked into and clog ...

To clarify my previous comment, I had to look it up. When we're talking about depths like those in aquaria, UV light penetrates just fine - there is some loss, but not enough to call it safe. That said, of course, there are different ranges of UV light, A, B, and C. UV-A is the least harmful, and th...

I think @Jools means to say, use open tubes, not caves closed at one end. But maybe I'm misinterpreting.

Cheers, Eric

My mustard spots do it, as do my guahiborums and ABNs. I don't think it's spawning related, but it seems perfectly normal in my tanks.

Cheers, Eric

Okay, no problem. It is less cluttered without it. I'll accept your judgment. Thanks for the explanation.

Cheers, Eric

I would guess they mean near-IR. Even it it was near-UV, that doesn't penetrate water very far, does it? I don't know what's available as a tank light.

Hi Jools, This may be nothing, but I think something has disappeared from my BLOG page: When I view a BLOG page for other members, beside each species name there is the link, "Show spawning report." Others BLOG pages.png When I view my own BLOG page, beside each species name there is the l...

Viktor Jarikov wrote:.To top it off, there were two paroons in there too.

What impresses me is that you can tell the difference! Other than perhaps the pointy dorsal fin (which may not be right either), the paroons and IDS look alike to me in these pics. LOL

Trust me. Perhaps not the actual "next" time, but sooner or later it will work. And each time the female lays eggs, remember she is older over time and more mature - egg count will rise too. My first ABN spawn was only about 50 eggs, and within 2 months I was getting over 200 eggs per spawn.

I see your photos of eggs on the CSG page. Again, congratulations! Good luck with the eggs. Myself, I've had mediocre success hatching eggs coated with any substrate (sand in my case), but really excellent hatching with clean eggs stuck to leaves and tank decorations. Please let us know your hatchin...

it looks perfectly normal. I assume you mean "normal" in the sense that it's not bleeding and it doesn't have little dangling flanges of tissue; isn't the reason you posted in the first place that its fin isn't "normal" shape, as in typical for a Hypancistrus or most other plecos?

Interesting. Do you think it's simply a developmental defect? Perhaps the fin was damaged when the fish was young in such a way that it is incapable of normal regeneration (since a lot of soft ray and fin damage does tend to heal over time, from what I've seen).