a easy plec to breed

[bristlenosekid]

hi
i've bred bristlenose catfish but now i want to try my hand at breeding another type of plec but i don't really know what to choose. i want some think that only grow to about 5" and thats not that hard to breed.
any sugestion and help please

[MatsP]

What do you want to be harder - fry survival skills are (supposedly) tested on breeding

Sturisoma

and other whiptails [I have had good fortune personally, but I certainly do not get 90% survival rate]. Getting the fish to breed in the first place is hard on some others, such as

Hypancistrus

,

Panaque

,

Dekeyseria

,

Hemiancistrus

, etc. But Hypancistrus aren't very hard to breed.

Others are hard to breed simply because the size of the fish and requirements for breeding caves, e.g

Pterygoplichthys

and

Scobinancistrus

- the latter may also be quite difficult to get the fish to breed in the first place, since there are no officially reported breding of those fish. Jools is trying to breed

Scobinancistrus sp(L253)

.

--
Mats

[apistomaster]

I would recommend trying

Peckoltia vittata

or any of the Hypancistrus spp. If you choose to try Hypancistrus then choose one of the species which are easily identified so you are sure the group is all the same species.

Hypancistrus sp(l201)

and

Hypancistrus sp(l260)

are as good as any to work with. A 2-1/2 inch specimen may be only about one year old.
The key to breeding any of the species other than common Ancistrus is patience.
Think of your project in terms of years not months.
It seems to take most of the smaller species about 3 years to reach maturity and I think most species are imported at 1 or 2 years old.
You may be able to find a group of adults but it may still take them a year to fully acclimate and become healthy enough to spawn.