The first fry from L260

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 21 Nov 2010, 14:22

Hi PlanetCatfish

I would like to share a little pics with you, of my first Hypancistrus sp. "Queen Arabesque" - L260.

When I discovered the eggs, there was 5 eggs in the cave with the male. I could see 8 empty egg shells, but there were still the 5 eggs, which looked good. But after a little time I saw that 2 of the 5 eggs were unfertilised. The last 3 eggs hatched, but one of the fry died just after hatching.

Now I have the 2 last fry swimming in my aquarium. This was the fishes first spawn, so I will expect much more from them in the future.

You can see the pics in this album.. http://galleri.jacob-lihn.dk/#3.7

dconnors · Post by **dconnors** » 21 Nov 2010, 22:53

Congrats! I hear these are one of the more difficult species of Hypancistrus to spawn.

corybrummie2010 · Post by **corybrummie2010** » 22 Nov 2010, 03:10

Congrats and well done Jacob

Good luck with raising the fry and keep us posted with how the fry are getting on.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 22 Nov 2010, 08:42

Great work!

--
Mats

Richard B · Post by **Richard B** » 22 Nov 2010, 13:42

Well done - i think L260 is one of the nicest of the small L numbers

andywoolloo · Post by **andywoolloo** » 22 Nov 2010, 19:47

nice job.

Post by **Barbie** » 23 Nov 2010, 05:57

Congratulations! Your fish should spawn again within a month. Best of luck with them.

Aren't those fry just positively stunning? ;)

Barbie

juventus · Post by **juventus** » 23 Nov 2010, 10:39

These plecs always gives a small number of fry’s. You shouldn´t expect more than 5-6 at the most. They aren´t easy to grow either. make sure you have plenty of oxygen for them to.

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 23 Nov 2010, 21:11

Hi everyone!

Thank you for all the congratulations!

Barbie: Ohh yes, they are very nice. It's great to see when some of the hard work getting them to spawn succeeds! It's good to hear that they will spawn again in a few weeks.

I hope there can be a little more than the 2 fry which I have in the breeder box right now

Juventus: I have read about the topic, here at the internet. Janne from Sweden thinks that about 20 fry is the biggest group of fry he had seen. In my spawn there has been around 13 eggs from the start. I know it's a small number compared to many other catfishes, but it's more than 5-6 fry

- I will try to keep oxygen level as high as possible.

Post by **Barbie** » 23 Nov 2010, 21:58

As the L260 reach maturity they will definitely have larger spawns than that. My two groups have averaged 14 or 15 fry per spawn. My old group had a spawn of 23. Don't settle for 5 or 6 survivors and think it's not possible to have much larger spawns. Zebras will even have more than that, IME.

Barbie

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 24 Nov 2010, 20:20

Barbie wrote:As the L260 reach maturity they will definitely have larger spawns than that. My two groups have averaged 14 or 15 fry per spawn. My old group had a spawn of 23. Don't settle for 5 or 6 survivors and think it's not possible to have much larger spawns. Zebras will even have more than that, IME.

Barbie

Thank you for your comment Barbie. It is good to hear some of your experiences about the breeding of L260. I remember a topic from you about raising your L260 fry. Do you have a link to that topic?
What are you feeding the fry?

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 26 Nov 2010, 16:57

Here is an update..

The fishes is still living and eating!

Matt30 · Post by **Matt30** » 26 Nov 2010, 20:13

Well done mate they are great looking plecos

young1nj · Post by **young1nj** » 27 Nov 2010, 02:58

That fourth pic from the Original poster is stunning. You can actaully see the eyes of the to be wiggler forming in the egg, looking about ready to come out.

When I got a pair together and they spawned for the first time I got a small batch of 3 to 5 I beleive, but they keep getting bigger as they go on a streak where I had up to 20 fry. Then they took a break and just started up last week with the changing of the weather going from relatively warm to cold and major changes in the humidity level.

congrats on the fry and good luck!

kouen · Post by **kouen** » 29 Nov 2010, 17:34

Jacob, nice pics!
Congratulations with brilliant fry! What kind of food are you feed them? Could you please indicate key water parameters in spawning tank?
We have the same way of development. 260 is my next target ))

I have a question. Why most part of people here are extracting caviar from father? Its better to give chance for male to grow fry first week. Maby I'm wrong. Please correct my conception if it is required.

Regards,
Sergey

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 29 Nov 2010, 21:35

Thank you for your comments!

Hi Sergey
Nice to hear, that other than me wants to try this nice pleco!
In the tank I use tap water. The hardness is around 12-15 and the pH is around 7,5 (pretty hard..). The temperature is 29 degrees celsius.
I feed them Earthworm sticks, shrimp sticks from OSI, JBL Novotab and a lot of frozen food like bloodworms, brineshrimp and things like that..

I do often try to take the eggs away from the male. Sometimes I regret that I did it, because the eggs was not fertillised. In this case with L260 the fishes were in a very crowed tank, and therefore I wouldn't take the chancen to let the fry be with the male. There was Apistogrammas and guppies in the tank.
- in this moment I have just moved out these other fishes (the guppies had some problems with white spots

). So now they are out, and the L260 and some smaller L010a have the aquarium for their own. BUT I think that the guppies reached to infect my small L260 fry with the white spots.. Maybe it can take their lives

kouen · Post by **kouen** » 13 Jan 2011, 13:00

Hi Jacob! How your brilliant babies are doing? I hope they are good and you got new clutch in NY. We are looking some update of our story.

I've seen some pictures on your site. Very Good, especially L66 honey! ))

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 19 Feb 2011, 18:48

kouen wrote:Hi Jacob! How your brilliant babies are doing? I hope they are good and you got new clutch in NY. We are looking some update of our story.

I've seen some pictures on your site. Very Good, especially L66 honey! ))

Hi Sergey

The fry died due to the white spot disease, which entered the aquarium just after the eggs hatched

As it wasn't enough that the fry died, so died my great L260 female right after, which I think was because of the disease. Arghh! I should never have bought the plants which caused to the disease in the aquarum.

jac · Post by **jac** » 19 Feb 2011, 20:47

Sorry to hear about your loss

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 19 Feb 2011, 21:46

Jacob,
It has been my experience with L260 fry that they are extremely delicate, especially during their first independent week outside their breeding cave. I lost all of 17 fry from one spawn shortly after making a large and cold RO water change. The problem had nothing to do with the RO water chemistry as they were already acclimated to a very soft water environment. What I did wrong was not use RO water close to the same temperature as the breeding tank. There were older fry in the tank which went unaffected. It was during the winter and I skipped not heating the reservoir of RO water prior to making the water change. Now I am more cautious but I continue to struggle to get L260 to breed successfully. I have had several ejected spawns which were apparently infertile.
These eggs were ejected despite the fact I had the cave openings raised so gravity would help contain the eggs inside the caves.

Another costly mistake I made with L260 fry was I once attempted to raise 20 L260 juveniles along with a couple new broods of L134. Both species' fry were about 2.5 cm long when I combined them but L134 fry grow a great deal faster and are not nearly as shy as those of L260. That mistake cost me half of that group of L260. I separated them as soon as I realized the L260 were unable to keep up with the L134 fry but I took too much time to prevent the losses I had. I typically leave my pleco fry in the breeding tank until they are about 3/4 in/2 cm.

If there are any mistakes to be made among L260's, I believe I have managed to make most of them at some time or another. My wild L260 first bred about 4 years ago but I still haven't perfected my L260 breeding and raising techniques.
L260 fry should be raised by themselves although I often keep Cherry Shrimp in both my breeding and grow out tanks but the shrimp never harm the fish.

plecomanpat · Post by **plecomanpat** » 19 Feb 2011, 21:56

also sorry for your loss. But if I am correct you are not gonna get "white spot" (ick) I am presuming, from plants brought into your tank. In my losses of fish due to ick it is almost always impossible to diagnos this visually on plecos because it primarily in the gills. Maybe you should look further into the cause.Stress? especially with a pair spawning and you get in there "re-arranging furniture.Hoping you can aqurire another female.....but its gonna cost you

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 19 Feb 2011, 22:28

Thank you Larry for sharing your experiences with raising this fry.
I cannot give you any solution at your problems - my L260's spawned in a suddenly - I did't do any special.
My L260 are F1 and they was 2½ when they had their first spawn.

Hi Plecomanpat
Yes - I know that plants cannot carry the parasite for long time, because the parasites live at the fish. But I know from a study of parasites that the parasites in a time lives off the fishes, and it is here they reproduce themselves. It can be in this stadium I have brought the parasites with the plants into my aquarium. I have to say that the plants came from a private breeder who had some extra plants and the plants I bought had been in an aquarium with fishes just before I bought them.
- the same disease hit my breeding group of L183 - all of these died. I couldn't cure the disease.
I have already tried to deal with L183 for diseases and they are extremely difficult to treat. I had them for 3 ½ years and had never been sick. These new plants, however, was the cause of the disease came into the aquarium.
I was ready to cry. To lose a breeding group of L183 that I had from 4 cm were not very funny.

I have already found some new L260 females for my group. 3 adult females. I have had the fishes for a month now and I hope to see some fry soon.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 19 Feb 2011, 23:21

Jacob,
During the early years when i was buying wild plecos from many sources and often received sick fish, I had one disease which has symptoms very similar to what you have described. It has been my experience that plecos rarely develop true Ichthyophthirus.

I took many skin scrapings and even gill sections from dying plecos which appeared to be covered with Ich. I examined the material at 100X and 400X using my very nice microscope and what I found were swarms of Chilodonella. It is difficult to treat by the time plecos show the symptoms but I managed to save many by using up to a table spoon of salt per gal for the first week accompanied by concurrent treatment with an aqueous malachite green solution, "Ich" medication. I brought the salt level down through large and frequent water changes after 7 days. Often changing 50% of their water daily but I kept the dosage of malachite green constant for 3 weeks.
I don't use any preparation which includes formalin because the plecos already had badly damaged gills and formalin tends to irritate fish gills. This is not always a problem but I was trying to sooth and promote gill healing by using the salt and it has some synergy with the malachite green solution. Chilodonella has a protracted life cycle compared to common Ich and it took at least 3 weeks of treatment and at least a month before the surviving fish looked clean and free of disease and had repaired most of the damage.

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 20 Feb 2011, 09:36

apistomaster wrote:Jacob,
During the early years when i was buying wild plecos from many sources and often received sick fish, I had one disease which has symptoms very similar to what you have described. It has been my experience that plecos rarely develop true Ichthyophthirus.

I took many skin scrapings and even gill sections from dying plecos which appeared to be covered with Ich. I examined the material at 100X and 400X using my very nice microscope and what I found were swarms of Chilodonella. It is difficult to treat by the time plecos show the symptoms but I managed to save many by using up to a table spoon of salt per gal for the first week accompanied by concurrent treatment with an aqueous malachite green solution, "Ich" medication. I brought the salt level down through large and frequent water changes after 7 days. Often changing 50% of their water daily but I kept the dosage of malachite green constant for 3 weeks.
I don't use any preparation which includes formalin because the plecos already had badly damaged gills and formalin tends to irritate fish gills. This is not always a problem but I was trying to sooth and promote gill healing by using the salt and it has some synergy with the malachite green solution. Chilodonella has a protracted life cycle compared to common Ich and it took at least 3 weeks of treatment and at least a month before the surviving fish looked clean and free of disease and had repaired most of the damage.

Hi Larry

Again: Thank you for very helpful answers..

Oh yes, Chilodonella is a bad parasite.
I think it was the same disease which hit both my L260 and my L183 (two different aquariums - but I came the same plants in the two aquariums, and therefore I think it is the same disease). My L260 was healthy after the first attempt with a broad-spectrum poison for the parasites - it took just a week where I made a higher temperature in the tank. That was easy with L260. My L183 was like a nightmare. In 3 weeks I tried to do every thing.. They was treated with 3 different poisons and at the same time I made a higher temperature and added salt to the water. Despite the powerful treatment they kept on dying. After 3 weeks my wonderful breeding group was dead.
That's life - now I hope that my L260 and L134 will breed

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 20 Feb 2011, 18:44

It isn't funny to loose expensive fish to diseases but I did rather enjoy your choice of word for fish disease medications. Many are really "poisons".
There is often a very fine line between when a chemical is a medication or a poison.
I consider hot peppers to straddle a fine line between being a food or a drug.

Chilodonella is seen more often when many wild plecos are being kept overcrowded, dirty and poorly fed.
Healthy specimens, especially healthy tank raised specimens, should be very resistant to Chilodonella. I think introducing it by way of adding new plants to be an unlikely cause but it is a fish parasite similar to Ich in that it is probably present in most fish containing aquariums and it takes something that lowers the fishes natural resistance to take hold.

I have kept L260 in water as warm as 90*F/32*C for weeks at a time and as long as their tank was well aerated and filtered, they were fine. It can get very hot where I live and my tanks run about 88*F/31*C for a couple weeks every summer.
I can only keep fish with high temperature tolerances.
I don't think Ancistrus can tolerate that high of a temperature for long.

kouen · Post by **kouen** » 22 Feb 2011, 08:57

Jacob,
I'm very sorry of your queens loss. I hope in coming time new wisdom will help you to reach new mountain peaks!
I'm also lost one very good mature sample recently

I think the reason is my stupidity only, next time I’ll be more careful with water games..

No Pane, no Gain!
Some positive news will be placed in my PCF’s diary

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 27 Feb 2011, 21:31

Thank you for your sentient words Sergey.

Larry: I call it a poison because a lot of the drugs in the "medicine" is malachite green, formalin and drugs like that.. These chemicals is is indeed killing in large quantities ;)

PseudaSmart · Post by **PseudaSmart** » 27 Feb 2011, 22:38

WIth this long of a thread I will admit I may have missed it but have you considered adding a UV sterilizer to your system? I have them attached to the outputs of my Fluval filters as extra insurance. When you have very rare or expensive fish this can be a lifesaver. Since adding them I have only had one outbreak of ICK in one tank, I had 6 L264's and 5 small clown loaches (5"). I good friend wanted me to breed some special guppies and since I had the top of my tank open it seemed like a good idea. All of the fish got ick and all survived, including the clown loaches. This was the first time I did not lose a clown to ick.

Good luck in the future!

Lihn · Post by **Lihn** » 28 Feb 2011, 17:34

likesloaches wrote:WIth this long of a thread I will admit I may have missed it but have you considered adding a UV sterilizer to your system? I have them attached to the outputs of my Fluval filters as extra insurance. When you have very rare or expensive fish this can be a lifesaver. Since adding them I have only had one outbreak of ICK in one tank, I had 6 L264's and 5 small clown loaches (5"). I good friend wanted me to breed some special guppies and since I had the top of my tank open it seemed like a good idea. All of the fish got ick and all survived, including the clown loaches. This was the first time I did not lose a clown to ick.

Good luck in the future!

Hi likesloaches

After the episode I have bought an UV-sterilizer (9 watt - maybe it is too small?). Now I have it as an extra security to prevent any diseases.
Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine in at a aquarium exhibition here in Denmark. He have had precisely the same problem with the L183's. All his L183 died because of the disease (he described it with the same symptoms as my fishes had), and although he is a very good L-catfish breeder he couldn't cure the fishes. I think that L183 has a special weakness to this disease.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 28 Feb 2011, 19:10

I already mentioned that I doubted whether your fish had Ich but just for the sake of discussion, if you hope that UV will protect your fish from that disease, consider this:
Most UV ratings are for how much UV radiation with a wave length of 253.7 nanometers are required to kill algae. It takes 22,000 microwatts/cm2 to kill Chorella algae.
It takes 336,000 microwatts/cm2 to kill Ichthyophthrius tomites.
What this means is that most aquarists use UV units which are grossly under powered to have any real effect against most fish diseases. Furthermore, a typical UV source loses 40% of its effects after 6 months. To use an effective level of UV, one needs to seriously up the power. This soon reaches a very expensive level to fight that which can prevented by strict quarantine procedures and those are much cheaper than relying on UV, imho. Just something to consider before investing in UV.
Information is from the book, Aquaculture Engineering, sometimes referred to as the aquaculture "bible", Frederick W. Wheaton, reprint 1985. Hard cover, 728 pages. $99.25 from www.aquaticeco.com. Cat. # WQB3

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