Greetings

[WichitaFalls]

Hello everyone. I'm a new member but an old fish keeper. I've really enjoyed keeping and breeding plecos for the last couple of years. I wanted to get some feedback on setup and breeding tips for some L236 that came from Rachel Oleary and bred by TwoTankAmin.

I purchased a total of 5. I believe I have 1 female so i placed 2 males and the female in a mature 29g planted tank. There are plenty of hiding places and 5 caves. I have a AC70 and a box filter. There are endlers for tank mates.

Photo period is 7 hours. Temp is 81. I use a tap/RO mixture to have a TDS of 90. PH stays around 7. I do a 50% water change every week.

I try to feed them a variety of foods that range from Repashy Bottom Scratcher, Ebo Mussel sticks, and frozen foods.

I know its all about patience and consistency...but does anyone have any feedback on how I can improve my process? Thanks in advance, Mike

[bekateen]

Hi Mike,
Welcome to Planetcatfish!

As for advice, @TwoTankAmin is probably your best resource. The @ symbol in front of his username will notify him that I mentioned him here.

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

For now my best advice would be patience. However, if you find you need to be taking a more active approach towards encouraging spawning, you may have an issue with the temperature requirements down the road. If you have to do a full blown dry/rainy, the final part of the dry season can see water temps approaching 90F or a tad more. Neither your plants nor your endlers may appreciate this. The plants less so than the endlers.

Everybody has to figure out what works best for them. I prefer to work with my Hypans in species tanks with no plants and no lighting except for when I must be able to see to work in a tank. Ambient light is sufficient for the rest of the time. Some tanks have substrate and some are bare bottom. Also, my filtration is pretty varied. Some tanks are filtered with mattenfilters and/or cube filters from Swiss Tropicals, some tanks use hang-on filters, some tanks have powerheads or auxiliary pumps for added circulation. There is no single formula I follow. As longs as the water parameters are in an acceptable range, oxygen levels are good and the diet is proper, they seem to spawn despite the other differences.

There are plenty of folks on this site who do things very differently and they have as much or more success than I have. It really does boil down to what works best for each person.

Keep things as they are for now and see how it goes. If they do not spawn in the current setup, you may have to consider making changes. I have always followed a basic formula. I do the least possible, aside from proper conditions and good food. If that isn't sufficient, I begin to take more active steps with the ultimate being a full blown dry/rainy.

I know you have some fry from these fish already. So you are over the first hurdle, getting them going, Normally they will spawn for a while once they start. However, this is not always the case.

[WichitaFalls]

I'm excited to document and reflect on my journey with the different plecos I'm keeping. Thank you @bekateen and @TwoTankAmin for taking the time to say hello and to share some valuable insight. I'll continue to dig deeper in previous breeding reports and posts to educate myself. Thanks, Mike

[TwoTankAmin]

Excuse the part in my above post re spawns you got, I confused you with another buyer in that respect. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions and I will help if I can.