Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

[Jobro]

nice vid Eric, though it's kinda spooky with that gravel or whatever moving around on it's own right next to the cave all the time
I actually had to watch it twice to see if it was little fish or gravel.

Thanks for the links, I took my time reading them
I also caught my 4 clowns and took a closer look today. None of them has a brush on his tail. I assume they are still too young or all females. Biggest is about 5cm TL, smallest about 4-4.5cm TL. Interopercularodontodes were about the same size on all of them as well. No really long ones to be spotted. Will give them just some more time to develeop, i guess.

I didn't think they would lay so few eggs. I assumed the clutch would have more eggs than that. But well the plecos are tiny and the eggs are huge, so it would seem right to have less eggs in a clutch.

I hope you will be a happy pleco dad very soon!
keep us updated!
cheers, Johannes.

[bekateen]

nice vid Eric, though it's kinda spooky with that gravel or whatever moving around on it's own right next to the cave all the time ... I actually had to watch it twice to see if it was little fish or gravel.

Thanks Johannes. Sorry, the junk moving around is poop. I was due to vacuum the tank on the day I discovered the eggs. I didn't want to disturb the dad and lose another batch of eggs, so I decided to skip the cleaning last week. With 7 clowns in the tank, they make a lot of that saw dust poop. It sinks to the bottom like little pellets, then whenever a fish moves, they swirl it back into the water column and the water current (from the Hydor Koralia Nano power head) pushes the debris around the tank. I'll vaccum the poop out as soon as I think the fry are safe.

I also caught my 4 clowns and took a closer look today. None of them has a brush on his tail. I assume they are still too young or all females. Biggest is about 5cm TL, smallest about 4-4.5cm TL. Interopercularodontodes were about the same size on all of them as well. No really long ones to be spotted. Will give them just some more time to develeop, i guess.

As you can tell from the size of my fish and from the comments of others in my earlier posts on sexing these fish, around 4-4.5cm SL (not TL) should be big enough to tell male from female if they are well conditioned, and others have reported clowns spawning at that length. If your fish are only 4-5cm TL, then you've got a little more growing to do. Patience, my friend.

I didn't think they would lay so few eggs. I assumed the clutch would have more eggs than that. But well the plecos are tiny and the eggs are huge, so it would seem right to have less eggs in a clutch.

Yes the eggs are big for such little fish! In my opinion, my clowns are on the small-medium size of adulthood, so I'm confident they haven't reached their peak reproductive potential in terms of clutch size (egg count per laying). And since this is only the second spawning in the tank, I expect that my adults will start out with small clutches and I expect clutch size will increase with each subsequent spawning. In one other breeding log entry for this species (here), krazyGeoff reported 40 eggs and fry from fish only 4cm SL. So I suppose based on his data, I should have more eggs from my females, since they are over 4cm SL. However, remember, I know I lost at least two eggs that fell out of the cave, but I don't know how many other eggs might also have been lost before I discovered the spawn. Also, I haven't actually gotten a good look at the full egg clutch in the cave since dad is so protective. So maybe my estimate of 5-10 eggs is a gross under-estminate... Believe me, few things would make me happier than to find out there are 20, 30, or 40 little baby clown plecos popping out of that tube in a few days!

Cheers, Eric

[NCE12940]

Staying tuned! I retrieved the remaining one from my LFS and it appears I have 2 very *hairy* males and no females And 3 chaetostoma formosae (I think). So no luck here

[bekateen]

I see eyes and little bodies! We're getting close!

[Jobro]

Nice one! Congrats!

Looks like it's really only about 10-15 eggs. I guess numbers will go up with age of parents, as u posted before.

[bekateen]

Thanks. I just bought an infrared video camera today to experiment with recording the fish without a flashlight. Here's the first video of the dad fanning his eggs. The image is sideways because I need to rotate the camera 90 degrees in order to mount it flush with the tank glass. What is clear already is that this camera, which is not HD, doesn't produce a very clear picture. Also, it's auto focus and can't be switched to manual, so I'll have to figure out a way around that.

https://youtu.be/jBqo5bjhr0Y

Definitely a pretty useless camera for when dad is deep in the cave, but I suspect this camera would be good for catching another mom and dad during courtship when they are near the mouth of a cave overnight.

I think I'll look into getting an HD camera instead of this one. But for now, I'll experiment with this and see what I catch.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Wigglers! Time to hatch, 7 days at 80F/27C degrees. After watching the group for a few minutes, and after staring at this picture for longer than I should have, I'm starting to think that the number of fry will be around 15, maybe even beyond 20... Goodie, goodie, goodie!

[Jobro]

Really not very much to be seen on that IR-video. I can see dads tail fanning, that's about all

Congrats on the hatching! they look like eggs with tails

[bekateen]

Really not very much to be seen on that IR-video. I can see dads tail fanning, that's about all

Yeah, I know. But to be fair to the video, that's all that was happening - dad was fanning his eggs. LOL

Here's a better view of the fry. If you fast forward to the final few seconds, you'll get the best view of the mass of fry. I think there are more fry than I originally estimated.

https://youtu.be/PQRgps6VmzE

[bekateen]

Apparently dad likes parenting. The eggs hatched 9-10 days ago; dad's still keeping the fry inside his cave. And now he's sitting on a new larger egg mass:

https://youtu.be/8ok0jB6y7Rc

The next video is longer but doesn't show the older fry as well: https://youtu.be/U434w2yTrk0

Now we're cookin' with fire!

[Mol_PMB]

Great news and nice vids!
My Farlowellas are hatching this morning too

[bekateen]

Thank you, Mol_PMB, and best of luck with the Farlowellas. I enjoy following your Farlowella updates.
Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Found one of the fry, 11 days post hatching, 7 mm SL, out of the cave. All the others are hiding safely at the far back of the cave with their dad. This little one is either brave or rejected (I don't know which).

[Jobro]

Wow great!!!

Great vids, great plecos! Nothing cuter than baby plecos!

[bekateen]

Thanks, Johannes.

UPDATE: For the last few days, more and more of the first juveniles, now 15 days old, have been leaving the cave to forage. I've put some algae wafers and raw red bell pepper in the tank for the juvies to feed upon; while it's popular with my juvenile ABNs, neither the juvenile nor the adult clowns show any interest in the red bell pepper. And although someone in the tank is eating the fresh sweet potatoes, I've not observed any of the juveniles anywhere near it yet.

At the same time, dad is not as careful with the newest batch of eggs, which hatched a few days ago. Every day I find 2-3 recently hatched fry (like little bodies on a full yolk sac) sitting outside the cave. Dad still has plenty of these new fry in the cave with him, but more and more keep falling out. I can see the little fry swimming, but not moving because they are literally anchored in place by the giant yolk sac they sit upon; but at the same time, they seem to move or disappear a day later. I don't know at this time if these little fry are surviving and I'm just seeing them in different locations, or if these are newly expelled young fry from the cave and the others from earlier observations have died. I don't see any adults trying to eat the yolky fry, so I'm wondering whether or not the fry might die by bursting their yolk sacs on the gravel bed.

[bekateen]

Here's a few of the recently hatched (about 3-4 days old) fry that the dad is either kicking out of his cave or he's allowing them to escape accidentally. I'm wondering if this is due to him being a relatively young dad, so maybe he's not able yet to manage two clutches of fry at the same time?

[Mol_PMB]

Great photos and they're really cute at that stage!

[bekateen]

Here are a few hatchlings which I rescued when they escaped dad's cave. I've placed them in a fry basket inside the parents' tank. They are now 5 days old and they are just starting to get their pigmentation and stripes. These are the same fry shown in the photos above, just one day later.

https://youtu.be/NVJmYdT2gs8

[bekateen]

From viewtopic.php?f=5&t=41417:

Eric,
Your P. maccus only need wood. My breeding group produces fry non stop. They eat the driftwood and bamboo in the tank. 1-2 times per week I drop in a few earthworm sticks or algae wafers, but this probably isn't necessary. I think it is more for me than the fish. The fry are raised in the parent's tank on the same diet.
-Shane

@Shane (or to anyone else who has successfully raise clown plecos from eggs), I'm curious how well your clown pleco fry survive once their yolk sacs are consumed. Do you experience high mortality, or do you have a high rate of survival? What do you observe them to eat at this young age? What first foods do they take?

My first clutch of successful fry are now about 18 days old. As far as I could tell, all of them made it to a free swimming stage and left the dad's cave. But for the last few days, since about day 14, I see only 2-3 juvies in the tank and I'm finding dead bodies. The young just seem to get skinnier until they die. There's lots of wood (3 different types: Malaysian driftwood, manzanita, and unknown) in the tank, plus I add fresh sweet potato and algae wafers to the tank. I've seen the adults eating wood, sweet potato, and algae wafers, but I've never seen a single fry sitting on any of these surfaces, so I'm wondering if they are even eating.

Currently I also have the second clutch of fry, some in an egg basket and some still with dad. They still have lots of yolk, but I'd like to think that I can avoid another high mortality with this batch.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. Here's what the oldest fry look like now:

[Jobro]

Hey Eric, sad to hear you are finding dead bodies
i hope it will stop and some of the small ones will survive!

I think they dont find enough food. Baby plecos are sometimes too dumb to go look for food. it must be right where they are.

I dont really know about baby Panaqolus. But I did some quick research and found most of the breeders keep them separated from the parents in a small tank for better feeding or even better in a fry basket in the parents tank. I would prefer the latter solution. Young plecos dont like changes of water parameters. So keeping them in the parents tank is better. You already have your fry basket. So use it for your youngsters. Put in some wood or other shelter so they can hide. Sitting in daylight causes stress.

Feeding is, according to the german sources I found, successfully done with: fresh artemia larvea (=baby brine shrimp), pleco wafers(dont just give them algae wafers, sometimes they need protein, too), wood, peas (squashed without the peel).
As some dont feed baby brine shrimp, i guess it's not mandatory.

try to blanch the pepper before adding it. Makes it easier to chew. Though they should be able to chew wood, you never know.

try to feed them more often, keep the fry basket clean, maybe add some snails.

cheering for you Eric!!

[bekateen]

Thanks, Johannes. I'm doing some of that now. Hopefully it helps. I'll try to capture more of the fry, too.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

UPDATE: I did a thorough cleaning of the tank today and I managed to net out most of the fry. I was able to capture a total of 42 fry and get them into the fry basket. As far as I can tell, there are about 3-4 of the older fry (now 22 days old) still alive, and (thankfully) a lot more of the newer fry - obviously that last egg mass had to contain around 50 eggs.

There may still be one or two older fry loose in the aquarium, and I know there are about 5 of the smaller fry still in the cave with dad, so in total, I think I still have about 45-50 total surviving.

With these younger fry, I hope I'm not counting my chickens before they've hatched (pun intended): My first juveniles started dying around day 13 or 14. These new fry are just 11 days old. I hope I don't experience another die-off in the next few days! Fortunately, this time I have most of them in the fry basket, with a variety of foods - Manzanita twigs and a few random chips of wood, a slice of sweet potato, part of an algae wafer, and a few NLS Thera A+ 1mm pellets. So if they start dying again, it won't be for a lack of food. Obviously, I will need to clean out the uneaten food in a day or two, but I'm wondering: if these fish usually survive by scraping/eating the decomposition layer on the surface of wood, might they also enjoy slightly (not completely) decomposed food? I mean obviously not really rotten/fungused food... but food a couple of days old, starting to look a little slimy? Does anybody have an opinion on or experience with this?

Here are photos of many of the fry in a temporary plastic enclosure; the older fish have more of a brownish tan coloration in their pale stripes, whereas the younger fry have more of a white-yellow color to their pale stripes; also, the dark stripes become less black and more reddish-brown as the fry age. The graph paper under their container is marked in 1/4 inch squares, so the biggest juvenile is just over 1/2 inch SL. I also captured one photo of a fry loose in the tank with two of the adults. I've also got a short video of the juvies feeding in the basket.

https://youtu.be/O1K1S6bmwyQ

[CharlieM9]

Eric,

I do not have any expierenced with maccus, but with my panaqolous L398, I always keep a couple oak leaves in the breeder box for them to munch on throughout the day. It is amazing how much 24 of them eat even...I put in repashy 3-4 times a day for them, plus live baby brine shrimp once a day.

I have not had any issues with fungused food as they devour as much as put in their breeder.

[bekateen]

Thank you, Charlie. I'll give those a try. We have lots of dry oak leaves around.

On page 1 of this thread where I show photos of the original four clowns, there was fish #3 with the depigmented spot on its nose (http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 20#p286832), which had a male body shape but did not have strong lateral odontodes. I still believe it's a male, but it never has developed odontodes; I suppose it could simply be a subordinate male in the tank.

Anyway, today that fish tried repeatedly to take over a cave from another male, who has occupied this cave for a couple of months. This resident male has been trapping females often, but so far has not successfully spawned; he may be the male who spawned first and rejected his eggs a day later (at the time of this video, he did not have a female, but within an hour of the video, he had trapped a female).

Here is an action-packed video showing the two fish spar repeatedly as the pale-nosed fish tries to get into the other guy's cave. It's a sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat drama, so grab your popcorn and hold your loved-one close; you'll need them to keep you heart in your chest as it practically pounds its way out due to the non-stop action!

https://youtu.be/9fXA8URBK1M

Cheers, Eric

EDIT: As a result of the discussion that follows at the bottom of this page and continuing onto page 4 of this thread, the video mentioned herein about clown plecos fighting has been renamed on YouTube. The new name is "Pre-courtship behavior in clown plecos (Panaqolus maccus): A female tries to enter a male's cave." Also, we now believe this clown pleco with the pale spot on its nose is a female trying to mate with the male inside the cave, not a male trying to take over the cave.

[bekateen]

AAAAANNNND THEN.... a few hours after the above video, the male who was defending his cave, and later guarding a female, is now incubating a mass of new eggs!

I wish all my fish were this busy! (Okay, not really... I wouldn't be able to take care of all the fry if that were true.)

[Jobro]

Congrats Eric!
Another spawn looks like you will have plenty of opportunity to learn raising plecos!
please keep us updated on the survival rate of the fry. Pictures are always very much appreciated

looks like your fry is feeding fine now. I assume u will have much better survival rates this way. Just keep up the cleaning of the basket and make sure there is a lot of circulation going on in there as well, they need oxygen and fresh water in their basket.

[bekateen]

UPDATE: Since last post, only three juveniles have been found dead... Not good but not horrible. Around 40 juveniles remain alive in the basket. Although I can't get a count of the juveniles that are loose in the tank, the ones I see do appear to be eating and in good health.

The male with the new clutch of eggs is still incubating his eggs. However two things appear to be true about this male and his eggs: (1) as with the first spawn back in June (which occurred in the same cave and probably with the same male), this male does not have a lot of eggs, and (2) he is not holding the eggs at the back of the cave. If you recall, the first clutch of 5 eggs in June all fell out of the cave after day 1 because the male let the eggs get behind him, and then his fanning action swept the eggs out of the cave. This time, the male is keeping the eggs in front of him so they are staying in the cave, but they are about half way towards the opening of the cave - dad seems to be backing up, moving towards the mouth of the cave more and more with each passing day. He still doesn't seem to be to be a good dad yet.

Another update: Yesterday a third male spawned. This is the male whose cave is located immediately in front of the Hydor Koralia nano so it gets a really strong current across its mouth. This is the same male shown in the videos on page 1 of this thread showing male-female courtship behaviors (https://youtu.be/0Cm4wauHJBk and https://youtu.be/enojLYEgTW4). This male has often managed to cave a female, but he's never spawned before. Like the other male with eggs, this guy doesn't have very many eggs, and he doesn't have the eggs very deep in the cave; in fact, he's already let at least one egg escape out from the cave into the aquarium.

In my experience, females of lots of species produce a smaller number of eggs the first time they spawn and more eggs each time thereafter, at least partly because the females are older and perhaps because their ovaries are larger in later spawns (this does not increase indefinitely, but at least for the first few spawns until they hit an "average" maximum clutch size, and then clutch size plateaus or at least slows down in its increase). While I've always felt that this clutch size increase was tied to the females' age, experience, and size, I've never thought this might be tied to the males' behaviors.

But given that these two males seem to be naïve and poor parents, unable to get their eggs at the end of the cave or keep them in the cave, I'm also wondering whether the males' parenting behavior may explain the small clutch sizes: Perhaps bad fathers aren't very good (relative to better fathers) at getting the female to cooperate - to get her properly positioned in the cave so she lays the eggs deep in the cave, and to get her to stay in the cave long enough to lay more eggs. Perhaps these "bad dads" let the moms escape after laying only a few eggs.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

Hey Eric,

how many females do u have in there? I assume u got at least 3 males? 2 "bad dads" and 1 good?
With so much spawning going on, maybe there is not enough time for the females to recover and gain some weight and produce the eggs?
Are you feeding actively or are they just feasting on the wood? Wood alone might not offer enough protein to create larger clusters of eggs - in such a short period of time.

Still you might be right, considering female A wanted to spawn with bad dad B and when he couldn't make her spawn all the eggs, she went to bad dad C in order to spawn again while having only few eggs left from the prior spawning with B.

Just some wild speculations on my side. Keep up your investigations!

[bekateen]

Hi Johannes,

The spawning group is four older fish (2 females, one male, and the "ambiguous" fish with the pale spot on its nose (I suspect it's a male without developed odontodes, but it may be a lean female)) and three newer fish (2 males and 1 female) - Total 3 males, 3 females, and 1 unknown.

The largest female I've owned for a few years. The other "older" fish were purchased in February 2015, and the newest fish were purchased in June 2015, only days before the first spawn. In fact, I believe that it was the addition of these three new fish that "mixed up" the social group and may have triggered that first spawn in June.

Your concerns about the food/nutrition issue are reasonable. To answer your question, their primary diet is wood. But they also have almost constant access to raw sweet potato, and I add algae pellets once per week. Although I have at least 3 females, I have no way of knowing which female is responsible for each clutch of eggs. In less than 3 months, I've had a total of 5 spawns in that tank, so either at least two females are on their second spawning, or possibly one female is really working overtime. So yes, it may be that they are spawning so much that nutrient availability is limiting clutch size (egg count) in these later spawns, but they aren't relying exclusively on wood for nutrition.

I think your last idea is very possible - that a female started to spawn with one male, but she escaped before finishing her egg-laying; then, still laden with eggs, she may have been trapped by the other male where she laid more eggs. Unfortunately, since I can't tell the ID of individual fish in the tank (except the fish with the white spot on its nose), I'll never know for sure which ones are the moms.

Eric

[bekateen]

Although I don't wish to belabor the issue of sexing these fish, I'm wondering if one of my videos provides clues as to the sex of the fish with the pale spot on its nose, the "ambiguous" fish (fish #3) from page one of this thread (http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 20#p286830 and http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 20#p286832):

If you would please be so indulgent as to go back and watch the video entitled, "Clown plecos (Panaqolus maccus) fight for a male's cave" (https://youtu.be/9fXA8URBK1M), pay attention to the genital papilla of the pale-spotted individual, the "intruder" trying to gain access to the cave.

When you watch it, make sure you set the video quality to High Definition, maximum quality (720p). Specifically, look at the intruder's genital papilla at the following time stamps (all these times are approximate):

• 0:08-0:09
• 0:38-0:42
• 2:04-2:06
• 3:00-3:05

At these moments, the pale-spotted fish seems to have a very prominent genital papilla, hanging down and backwards like an open hatch. By contrast, at no moment in the video did I see a prominent genital papilla on the male guarding the cave.

Is this pale-spotted clown a female? Is the genital papilla the right shape for a sexually ripe female? Perhaps I've misinterpreted that video - maybe it doesn't show one fish trying to take over the cave of a resident male. Maybe it shows a very sexually eager female trying to mate with the male in the cave, but at that moment in time the male isn't ready or interested yet.

If so, then my observation that the resident male in the video was trapping a female just one hour after this video was taken might mean that the pale-spotted clown IS the female in the cave. And remember, this particular clown with the pale spot on its nose doesn't have a plump, round body like the other three females in the aquarium. If that is the case, then this might explain the small number of eggs which were laid in the cave.

And if this fish IS a female, then it explains why she didn't have strong odontodes in her initial photos, and why she had a large genital papilla in the initial photos (although again, it was her narrow body and modest odontodes which led me to suspect she was a male, perhaps subordinate in the tank; I may have gotten that wrong!).

I'm just wondering, and I hope someone else can review the video and affirm the gender of this fish, one way or the other.

Thanks again. Cheers,
Eric

EDIT: As a result of the discussion that follows this post, the video mentioned herein about clown plecos fighting has been renamed on YouTube. The new name is "Pre-courtship behavior in clown plecos (Panaqolus maccus): A female tries to enter a male's cave."