Peckoltia compta (L134) breeding setup

[MatsP]

I would agree that the two females look fatter, head is narrower (where it attaches to the body). So, I think, your fish are two females and one male. But they aren't the easiest to sex.

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Mats

[MarcW]

Thanks Mats, that's good news. I have decided not to worm them this time as they are already eating (brineshrimp and worm tablets) and see how they get on.

I will keep everyone posted if there looks to be any breeding activity. On the subject, I have heard that lobster eggs can be good to condition smaller catfish for breeding, I've not seen these in stores before, the only one which should have had them had run out! Any opinions on them, and specifically to Mats, have you seen any locally?

[MatsP]

Never seen/looked for Lobester eggs, so can't say.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

My guess on the sexes is the same as MatsP but also as mats said, they are not always very easy to sex.

Maybe lobster eggs are fine but I would use them in moderation.
Because I keep Discus and have shared Leopard Frogs with Discus keeping friends, we have found that none of the Peckoltia and Hypancistrus should be allowed to eat a lot of beef heart blend. Things will go smoothly for quite awhile then one morning plecos start showing up dead with bloated bellies. I think raw meat is difficult for them to digest despite the fact they love it.

I have been using earth worm sticks as my meat eating plecos' staple food for 7 years. I supplement that with frozen blood worms, Tetra Color Granules and live black worms in decreasing amounts in the order listed. Spirulina sticks get fed to them a couple times a month. Use caution with new foods that are very rich.

[MarcW]

Thanks for the information Larry. They are currently eating brineshrimp (regular and garlic enriched), which I understand is far from rich/high in protein? They are also eating tablets which contain earthworm, crustaceans, and molluscs which are 47% protein.

I plan to try some bloodworm soon, and add an algae wafer (which contains fish meal) every so often.

[Richard B]

I find lobster eggs too small to feed in the frozen blocks they come in, as when they defrost a fine "smoke" of the eggs drifts through the tank & doesn't present a concetrated food source as they get sucked up by the filter (i suppose i could turn it off). I prefer to mix with other ingredients and feed as a more solid lump like blend lobster eggs with a whole shell-on prawn to make a paste, roll it into a ball or two or three and feed this to the tank - it sinks quick and is a good food all round. I don't know that lobster eggs have any conditioning benefit over other foods..?

[apistomaster]

Marc,
That sounds like a pretty good diet.
I think earth worm sticks are 42% protein. They contain shrimp meal and some Spirulina. Frozen brine shrimp lose a lot of nutrition because the ice crystals puncture the cell wall. Same thing happens with other frozen foods like blood worms but blood worms have a more substantial exoskeleton which is a source of calcium and helps to retain their inherent nutritive content compared to brine shrimp. Variety is always good so there is no reason not to use both these frozen foods.
I use fewer foods but enough variety to cover all the bases.

[MarcW]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I will continue feeding as I am and vary occasionally with a few other things. One food I did pick up recently that I thought seemed good is made by JMC Aquatics Limited called "Ingo Seidel's Special Diet for: Loricarias" it contains peas, salad(lettuce maybe?!), spinaich, carrots, soybeans, maize, shrimp, mussel, rotifer, cress, wolffia, sprinula. It states that it is around 4.5% protein so maybe a good food for omnivores which are more veg than meat eaters. It comes in frozen cubes and holds together well with an almost jelly consistancy when thawed.

When I brought the fish back, out of curiosity I checked the TDS of the water in the bags, my meter showed 960ppm! I was told they were kept in RO water which I guess could be anything depending on what is added to it, but this seemed very high to me. It was a good job I checked as my tank is around 160ppm so I took a while longer to aclimatise and dilute the water in the bags before adding to the tank. Any idea what could have caused that high TDS? The fish were in the bags for 4 hours could they have excreted that much waste? There was only one fish per bag, in around 1.5 litres of water.

Thanks for the help.

[MatsP]

I think Pier adds a fair bit of salt to the water. Many shops do. The salt raises the TDS much quicker than for example calcium carbonate (and TDS is based on an average mix of minerals).

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Mats

[MarcW]

Hi Mats, thanks for that, I had read that salt was often the cause of high TDS readings from LFS water, but I'd not heard of that until today when I looked it up. Good to hear thats what they do rather than it being anything sinister.

[MatsP]

Good to hear thats what they do rather than it being anything sinister.

I would like to point that this is just my speculation - I haven't asked Pier about it. But it's the most logical conclusion, and I know for a fact that some other shops that I have talked to about this do add salt to their water to improve the fish health.

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Mats

[MarcW]

Sure, thanks Mats. I will go along with the salt theory, and if anything seems wrong with the fish I will give Pier a call to see if they can confirm or give another reason. Although fingers crossed they are active and doing well, I have seen at least one of the new arrivals eating within 24 hours too, which is a first for me with Loricariidae.

EDIT: I have just sat in front of the tank for 5 mins and in that time seen all of the fish eat! There does seem to be one boistrus male (the original one) who seems to have his territory marked out, once one of the others gets within a few inches of him they get chased away, nothing serious yet and it doesn't seem to be stopping any of them from eating.

[apistomaster]

Added salt is almost certainly why the bag water had such a high TDS,
Nitrite toxicity is somewhat diminished in the presence of salt.
I am not aware of salt having any ameliorative effects on the ammonium toxicity.
The usual drop of pH is due to a build up of CO2 + H2O -> carbonic acid which lowers the pH and ammonia/ammonium is less toxic when the pH drops below neutral(pH 7.0).

There are different schools of thought regarding acclimation procedure. Each has it merits.

I prefer to have the destination receiving tank pre-adjusted to be similar to the supplier's water chemistry and pour fish in to a small container and simply net them out and drop them into the receiving tank. I want my fish out of stagnant bag water ASAP.
I do allow water temperatures in the shipping bag to reach equilibrium with the receiving tank first.

Other people prefer using a slower mixing of their water before transferring their fish to their tank.

That 4.5% protein looks like a typo to me. Are you sure it isn't 45% protein?

[MarcW]

Hi Larry, thanks for the details regarding aclimatisation. My tank water is fairly similar to the tank they came from apart from the salt, if thats what was causing the TDS difference. I tend to put my new fish in a container with some of the bag water but not all, then drip from an airline until the water is about 10-20% bag to 80-90% tank then net or pick them out and put in the tank.

The 4.5% protein is what it states on the packet, however it also states 85.2% moisture, how much of that disappears when defrosted I don't know, but that could bump up the percentage of protein if water melts away from the cube.

Does anyone know if the difference (when aclimatising to a lower TDS) in TDS affects fish in different ways depending on if it's caused by added salt or hard water?

[MatsP]

So 85.2% moisture and 4.5% means that it's about 30% of the "not water" content that is protein. Sounds like a decent type of food.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

Assuming the salt was used only for shipping water it may be ignored.
Very large differences in TDS between what they are used to, to something extremely low can cause some degree of osmotic shock, especially to the cells that make up the gill tissues. I find that making a 50% reduction in the TDS is not excessive. In fact, that is exactly what I do just before I anticipate my L134 breeder to begin spawning. My city may be using water from anyone of it six deep wells. In past years my tap water had a TDS of about 450 ppm and I would make 50% RO water changes ever 3 or 4 days until I got readings around 40 ppm. Then I would try to maintain the TDS between 40 and 75 PPM. Last year they began using a different well so my tap water changed to about 240 ppm. I am just beginning the 50% RO water changes. These steps down seem to stimulate them more than stressing them. In general, fish seem to have even more tolerance for abrupt increases in the TDS. Other breeders may be more conservative than I and might recommend smaller single step decreases. I just know my method, using my water has never caused any problems.
Large changes in pH seem to be a greater stressor than the changes in TDS but pH is not a linear measurement.
Each whole unit of pH is 10 times more or 10 times less that the next highest or lowest whole unit.
Fortunately, one can make a large change like 50% RO water with relatively small changes in pH. For example: when I make a 50% RO change the water begins with a pH of 7.4 but afterwords it's pH only drops to about 7.0.
My target is actually about 6.2 to 6.4 but as I dilute it with successive RO water changes the pH gradually drifts downwards as the diluted water losses some of it's buffering capacity and I can achieve this without using any acids to gradually lower the pH. My tap water has both KH and GH(6*, 7*) which are nearly the same so simple RO water dilution of the tank water makes all parameters change gradually enough to not stress the fish. My final target for KH and GH is 3 to 4 degrees.
Once my L134 stop breeding I go back to using straight tap water.
My L333 breed freely in my tap water and are so productive the year around that I always have several hundred on hand.

[MatsP]

The water the fish are "shipped" (I'm fairly sure Marc picked up the fish himself) is from the tank where the fish are kept in the shop...

I have bougth several lots of fish from Pier Aquatics. I put the fish in a bucket and drip in water from the tank of their new home, until the water is similar to the tank water.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

I get almost all my fish from on line dealers from all over the USA.
My LFS doesn't even know what I am talking about when I mention what I raise and they are terrified of Discus.
I wish shops would not use salt unless a particular species needs it. Mollies, for example.

[MarcW]

I picked up the fish myself, and the water in the bags was taken directly from the tank which they were on display in.

(EDIT: Thats just how I aclimatised these and my other catfish Mats, I think the gradual change over 1-2 hours is less stress on them and it gives you a good chance to take pictures for sexing or ID purposes.)

The mix which you mention Larry is similar to what I use for the L134 tank, my tap water is very hard, a lot of the local area is chalk. My pH is 8-8.2 and TDS around 300ppm, I did do a GH/KH test a while back but can't remember the exact results, but it took over 20 drops of each solution before the colour turned indicating the measurement. So I use 50/50 Pure RO/tap water, this brings down the pH to around 7.6 and TDS to around 160ppm.

Thanks for the large RO change breeding trigger idea, once they have settled for a few months I will try that, as you probably only need about a cup of my tap water to 25 litres RO to bring the pH to 7 and TDS to about 50!!

I did see a male in a cave yesterday which I got excited about, although I have heard that many 'live in' or claim a cave regardless of intent to breed and go in and out for years before anything happens!

[apistomaster]

They do use caves to hang out in. Often for a very long time so don't make much of it but if you see two sharing a cave and one is scratched up you may have a surprise inside. I pretty much ignore what goes on inside of the caves. I like turning on the lights then one morning seeing a bunch of fry skittering for cover.
I received adult wild fish but they did not spawn until about 2-1/2 years later.
OTOH, last year I was able to get some of my 2 year old F1 females to spawn with wild males.
I had lost one of my original wild female breeders. She was hiding in a deep crack in a piece of wood I removed. I discovered her mummy a week later. My wild females and males are at least 7 years old now and their brood sizes range from 20 to 35. My young females produced small broods of 12 to 15. This year they are 3 years old so if they spawn they should be able to produce more fry. I am hoping to see my first F2 generations this year from my oldest F1 fish. They are 3 years old but haven't been set up in their own breeding tank yet. I have quite a few scattered among my Discus display tanks and one large group in a 40 gal breeder tank but they have no caves yet. At least yesterday I made the first 50% RO water change in my old breeding tank so I have begun taking steps to set things in motion.
I never take it for granted that my plecos will breed year after year save my L333's; they are almost like Bushy noses breeding year around and producing large broods.
I haven't used a colormetric titration test method for hardness or pH in years but isn't each drop about 17.5 ppm ~1* or is it one drop per degree of hardness? After using electronic test meters so long I have been out of touch. I know people generally pan the combination test dip sticks but I always found that fresh Mardel 5 in 1 test strips to agree rather well with my electronic meters so I use them as a crude cross check. I calibrate my pH meters with the pH 4.1 and pH 7.1 test solutions but I don't have any calibration solution for my EC/TDS meter. My RO water is about the best I have to check that meter. I do not use the 3rd stage mixed bed deionization cartridge. I figure if my membrane is removing ~97% of the TDS that is close enough for fish work. My RO water tests out around 9 to 12 ppm. Probably within the standard deviation for the meter I have been using for 5 years. I do change my meters' batteries every other year.
I don't think fish are so sensitive that 100% of the TDS must be removed unless your water contains measurable amounts of chlorinated hydrocarbons and the like. I ask for the annual comprehensive water test report from my water utility as a reference. Our water is from wells over 600 feet deep and that water is probably tens of thousands of years old.
Always test a sample of water with electronic meters away from any source of electromagnetic fields such as fluorescent aquarium lamps. They can cause spurious readings if you test directly in the tanks near the lights.

[MatsP]

Well, the water around here is about 400ppm TDS, let's put it that way. If it's the API test,it's one drop per German degree, which indeed is about 17.5ppm.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

MatsP.
Thank you for the clarification.
I guess my memory banks are not too badly corrupted... yet.

[MarcW]

Thanks again for all the information! I have just dug up the results of my GH/KH tests just out of interest, they are below.

GH - 16 drops - 16*20 = 320 mg/l which according to the leaflet is equal to 320 ppm

KH - 22 drops - 22*10 = 220mg/l again the leaflet states this is equal to 220 ppm

This was taken from the tap not out of a tank.

I'm not sure how old my fish would be they are between 7-8cm TL but being wild caught this could mean they are still young (1.5 to 2.5 years?). I am guessing that it takes a while for them to breed as they get used to the new environment, get into condition, and used to strange faces looking at them through the tank!

I guess they could breed now if conditions were perfect or if they had been left in the wild, as there are clear odontodes all over the rear half of one male, another also has them but not as many or as long. No sign of females getting fat with eggs yet though. Do they get gravid regardless of intention to breed? If they do it will help me definitively determine the sex of the fish I have.

[apistomaster]

The females, as long as they are in good condition, do tend to have a bulge beginning behind their pectoral fins whether they are ready to spawn or not. Males tend to have a more "V" shape; both when viewed from above.
2-1/2 inch wild fish are approximately 2 years old so your estimates seem reasonable to me.

[MarcW]

Thanks for the tips Larry, they are feeding very well at the moment so I will keep an eye out for any getting wider behind the pectoral fins.

[kouen]

Hi to all!

Sorry for interruption. Could you please advice about that fishes? I hope they are enough strong and sex is different.

Regards,
Sergey

1.




2.

[MarcW]

Hi Sergey, from the pictures I would suggest number 1 is a male due to the 'hair' along the tail. Number 2 does look like a female to me.

Have you had the fish long, are you also hoping to breed them?

[apistomaster]

Sergey,

You have plenty of breeding sized fish in good condition.
It is largely up to the fish as to whether they will cooperate with your breeding plans.
As I mentioned earlier, I received breeding sized fish but they took 2-1/2 years before they first spawned yet I was able to breed 2 year old F1 females with my wild males last summer so one just never knows.
Try simulating the onset of the rainy season now using RO water refills to make their water softer. That is what I have done for the past three years and just began doing for the 4th year. If they follow past years' patterns they should spawn in about a month. I also increase the proportion of frozen blood worms and add some live black worms at this time of the year. I feed mine mostly earth worm sticks and frozen blood worms most of the time. The live worms are placed in a bowl in my tank because I use about one cm of substrate. In a bare bottom tank I just let the worms fall to to the bottom.

[kouen]

Thanks Guys!

I’ve got that 2 fishes recently. Lady fom Moscow sold their as 2 males. Actually I purchased few juveniles in Denmark before and decided to find some mature males for growing kinds, just in case. My initial plan to breed starts from 1012, before some females from kinds set will grow. Perhaps I may adjust it a little bit

Paw from CPH spawning pecoltia very successfully long time. I will arrange video of his breeding tank, just caves and wood.

Here is my little-big frogs once more.



Yesterday I've made very deep tank cleaning, replaced a lot of water and vacuumed hard dusted gravel. Water parameters before big cleaning ph 7, gh 10, kh4. At night “lady” tried to force in to male cave. He was very stupid and guarded cave from her very hardly…
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Here is Paw's breeding chamber of leopard frogs

These small plump zebras with vertical lines now in my tank. A little ehinodorus-terminators!

[kouen]

Good news! Today I was a witness of frogs spawning. Female is very reduced in diameter and male guarding clutch of eggs now.

Thanks to all! It is a real 100% breeding pair