L-173b from Glaser

[Unungy]

any pictures?

Saul

[Bellenz]

Please look at the pictures in my web. Go to galleries at www.bellenz.com.







Rajanta
www.bellenz.com

[Champ-BKK]

Please look at the pictures in my web. Go to galleries at http://www.bellenz.com.

Rajanta
http://www.bellenz.com

Nice website.
See you again on AQ11

[TwoTankAmin]

I do not mean to reanimate a dead thread. But I promised to post if these fish ever spawned for me. This evening I spotted a fry in the tank. It had not quite lost all of its yolk sac. The dad was doing some fanning and would not let me see the back of the cave, so I assume he is hiding a few more fry. The lone one was in and out of the cave, the last time blown out by dads fanning.

I know I have serveral females and have 3 fish caved including the dad, so I am hoping this is the start of having several spawns. Optimistically looking ahead, I will be very curious to see how the fry turn out.

I was not able to get pictures when I moved the fish from a 20 gal. long to their current 33 gal. long.

[Barbie]

Congratulations! Those resurrections are always welcome!

Barbie

[TwoTankAmin]

I have to do it again. The first spawn resulted in confirmed free swimmers. I spotted them during maint for the next two weeks and then have not seen a trace of them since. Fast forward.

Last mid Oct. I tripped and broke a hip and have been recovering since. A couple of very nice ladies I know were kind enough to do my tank work at 2 week intervals. On their last visit they spotted the same male on eggs. Despite my neglect of tanks by cutting down the frequency of things, I have been able to do it at a reduced pace. Last weekend as I was cleaning the tank, a dead fry flushed out. During the rest of cleaning I spotted 4 live free swimmers which I pulled to a trap which circulates tank water. So far so good. I did not want to chance losing them since it looks like I lost the first spawn. The spawns seem to be quite small I don't think there could have been more than 7 eggs in either spawn. I consider this a good sign in terms of what the fish are since my experience is Hypans which give the smaller spawn sizes seem to be the more desirable ones in terms of availability and cost.

I am still inclined to believe the variability in appearance belief for 173 and also the 173b designation being created by Glasser to apply to their 173 offspring which are variable enough to make them less than ideal looking specimens. I never felt it was more than their "private" designation. The only way for me to confirm it all is to do what Glaser represents should happen when they say some of the fry from should come out much closer to the ideal look we all want for this fish. That is to produce some fry that actually do. My bet is it will take a whole bunch more fry than 4 for that.

There is no point in pictures as they would be meaningless in terms of species info. If I can keep them alive and grow them out, when they begin to look more interesting, I will get pics for the thread.

[exasperatus2002]

Great job. Keep us posted.

p.s we all love baby pics.

[Raul-7]

Whatever happened? Did you get any fry resembling the "typical" L173?

I mean L236 can often times look drab, but then you get a few specimens that resemble the famous picture of Ingo Seidel.

[TwoTankAmin]

I have 3 fry which at last spotting were over an inch TL at least. This past year has been a challenge and many fish were lost, including fry due to an inability to do the needed regular maint. on tanks. I only see these fry from on my back under the tank looking up through the bottom glass.

[Unungy]

I have 3 fry which at last spotting were over and inch TL at least. This past year has been a challenge and many fish were lost, including fry due to an inability to do the needed regular maint. on tanks. I only see these fry from on my back under the tank looking up through the bottom glass.

Sorry to hear that Chris. I hope things get well soon.

[TwoTankAmin]

Time to update this old thread.

As part of my move to HMFs, I finally got into the tank for these fish yesterday. I have seen a number of spawns from these fish but have also managed not to see most of them survive. I never wanted to pull apart their tank and never tried pulling spawns.

The net result of yesterday's effort were as follows-

• -> I tried to get pictures. I am lousy with digital cameras and normally rely an shooting a ton and crossing my fingers. The bbater inthe camera was dying near the end and I have not had a chance to see if I got anything useful. If I have anything decent I will post them in this thread.
  
  -> All 7 of the original fish were still there. However, they looked a bit different from their pictures originally posted in this thread.
  
  -> 11 offspring were removed to their own growout tank. They ranged in size from recent free swimmers to an almost 2 inch juvenile. They appeared to be as variable looking as their parents.
  
  ->2 males were caved and refused to come out during the process. One cave for sure had no spawn and the other the male would not let me see one way or the other.

This tank is the one where I am using an unusual set-up for an HMF. Instead of using a single 3 inch thick 20 ppi foam, I am using a 2 inch thickness but placing a foam at each end of the tank (total of 4 inches). One has an over the top return and the other will have its return through the foam and close to the bottom of the tank. Bother are powered with 160 gph pumps with variable flow control. This should give a somewhat circular flow pattern. It is an experimental design and will be my third tank switched over to HMF filtration. Yesterday I installed the first foam and removed one of the two sponged powerheads.

edit: I just checked the camera and there are a few usable pics' I also discovered i can't count. there are 12 not 11 offspring? Pics need to be edited before posting.

2nd edit; It gets more interesting. I just went to move my equipment from the fish space back into the main house for weekend tank maint. I noticed in a bucket was a small puddle in which a very small fry was swimming. It had survived in that chilly puddle for about 19 hours and is now in the tank with its 12 cousins/brothers and sisters.

[Barbie]

They seem to be very tough, thank goodness!

Barbie

[TwoTankAmin]

The pics are not great, but this is the largest offspring (it is in the 2 inch range). I sure hope the striping pattern holds over time.

[Orinocensis1]

very nice pattern I hope it holds over time as well. looking foward to growth updates

[TwoTankAmin]

I wanted to check on the fry i had moved into a 20L growout tank. A number of them were very recent free swimmers and I was afraid they migh be lunch for the big guy. So I pulled the tank apart and was happy to find all the fish present and accounted for. I also managed to grab a couple of snapshots with the digicam. Two of them came out OK.

[Chinafishboy]

As I promised a while back, I have taken a number of photos of the 7 fish I got via Glaser in Dec of 2009. I recently had to move them into new, more spacious, digs and used the opportunity to have my brother take pictures for me. There are 26 photos in all for the 7 fish and I felt trying to post them all here was a bit too much. What I have done is created a special gallery where they can be viewed. the pictures are Labeled Fish1, Fish 2 etc ,. and they go in order, if you are interested you can view them here http://twotankamin.smugmug.com/Fish/L-1 ... 2202_Yymvf

The original pictures were shot at a much higher resolution and they have been reduced 75-80% in size. When viewed in their original form the underside shots are amazing.

A always, I welcome all comments on these fish and what they may or may not be.

Your fish is very beautiful

[pleconut]

Sorry to hear about your health worries and issues finding accommodation for all the new fry you have discovered. But despite all this you must be doing something right. Best wishes to you.

[TwoTankAmin]

TY both-

Fortunately most of the health stuff is behind me.

Sometimes in this hobby we work like crazy to get our fish to spawn, other times they go when they feel like and often this happens to be the worst time for us. I have been complaining for some time that my original zebra group doesn't spawn much any more. So of course on top of everything else, I can confirm I spotted a free swimming fry last Sunday. Thank goodness that tank can handle this batch of fry and more if they choose to produce them.

Returning to the overall topic of this thread, these fish have spawned on and off for a while. However the survival rate has been poor. Some of this was due to lack of care. But I have also thought for some time that there is some predation of young happening. I am not sure by whom- older offspring and/or adults. But, the 13 odd fish I pulled were all pretty small save 3 larger ones, including that in the pics above. That leads me to believe I have fish from several different spawns, but the total numbers are too low for many to have made it.

[pleconut]

Now you know that they are spawning, re survival rate, it may be worth removing eggs/fry, that's once of course that you've got the fry tank situation sorted.

[TwoTankAmin]

I got a few new snapshots if the neat looking fish. I do mean snapshots not good photos, but you can still get a good idea of how the fish looks. These guys sure grow slowly. This is the largest offspring and when I go to work cleaning the tank is comes out of hiding and parks itself in that driftwood crevice. So far the lines are not getting wider so it seems to be retaining its basic look. I have a number of smaller fry in the tank but have not checked how they look. many are much smaller and I see no point in disturbing them all to get pictures yet.

[TwoTankAmin]

While I am not big on filing breeding reports, I do try, where it is appropriate, to update threads over extended periods of time. I hope it offers a somewhat different perspective. I am up-sizing a couple of tanks and part of this process meant the 13 F1 173b (my tanks, F3 for the line) had to be moved. So I took the opportunity to try for some acceptable pics.

But first, a couple of observations
- The parents were certainly diverse in their appearance and did not look like L173 for sure.
- The offspring are quite diverse in their appearance and none look to me to look like typical L173.
- They also do not look much like their potential parents.
- The two pictured in my post before this one are still looking pretty neat.
- One bigger one has an unusual pattern on its face, a neat "bullseye: on the right side.
- Could the bottom pic show a Fm which may have eggs?

Enjoy

[flh1200]

Thanks for keeping up Posting in this thread. I recently talked to Walter Lechner (Biologist)and he and a Lot of other scientists believe that within the plecos from rio xingu (L66, L173, L236, L333, L399, L400,..)there occurs a Lot of crossbreading - which would explain the extrem Variations within one batch.
Max

[TwoTankAmin]

This is for sure a reasonably certainty. Consider the wormline plecos collected from the Xingu and then consider the only described species there is the zebra. All other describe Hypans are from other rivers.

AT the 2016 CatCon I brought 5 of my F1 L173 because I wanted to ask a couple of the well know pleco experts there about them. Without using names, I was told what I had suspected. L236 may or may not be a species but 173 most likely is. I was also told my fish were 173s.

I have both an adult wild caught group which are not mine and then the F!s I am growing out. No spawns from the adults so far.

For me the attraction of this group of fish is the patterns. The only B&W Hypan. I have kept that breeds true are zebras. There is no doubt from going free swimming until the day they die that they are a zebra.

[Phreeflow]

This has been a fascinating post to read. Really appreciate you keeping this post updated. They are very beautiful fish and I quite enjoy the variability

[pleco22]

Good to see this post again. As I said some years ago - L 173b - is a low quality form of L 173. The problem is, that some breeders have used the variation of L 173 (wich is not that high) to sell their L 173 looking fish as well as L 173b. That means a lot of L 236, L 400 and L 333 and even Hybrids are on the market labeled als L 173b. The fish on the picture are very nice - but a total mess. So please avoid selling these fish as L 173b or any other L-number.

[TwoTankAmin]

Since I purchased these fish from the people who got them directly from Glaser, and they called them L173b, I would sell them as what they came to me as. I see nothing wrong with that. I would point buyers to this thread and tell them whether to buy the fish or not is their decision.

I do not misrepresent what my fish are nor from where/whom they were acquired. And I usually know the origin of any particular tank raised fish I have.

I can also say say they I am also working with two groups of L173. The first is on loan to me to try and spawn and is a wild caught group. The second are F1 L173 I am growing out to try and spawn. There is a pretty fair consistency in the patterning of them as the become adults.

Finally, the people who would be interested in buying these fish as being exactly as described are also savvy enough to understand what they may or may not be getting. So far I have only sold 5 and I am continuing to grow out 13. I buy such fish with my eyes open and I do not try to sell them for insanely unfair prices.

When I sell my L236 offspring which came from a traceable source, I provide a one page paper on them with links to articles and info which points out all the pitfalls. I would be happy to post it or pm a copy if anybody wants to see it.

[Bellenz]

I hope I can share some of our L173B Super

[TwoTankAmin]

Nice fish, do you have any photos of them at closer to adult sizes? I am curious how they turn out.

[TwoTankAmin]

Just a quick update. I was feeding this tank yesterday and I spotted a new fry. It had enough size that I know it has been free swimming for a few weeks for sure. I missed it when it happened.

The 173 and 173b are the largest Hypans I have. They get bigger compared to what else I have kept/keep. They also seem to take more time to reach a size/age where they spawn. The result is they make it quite difficult to confirm the presence of eggs/wigglers/free swimmers.

In the past week or two I have also had eggs from the 236 and 450 groups. The latter have been like rabbits lately.

[amazonaquatics]

Looking great! Let me know when you have some fry available! ;)