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My snowflake plecos spawned 2 days ago, it was the second time. The first one was three weeks ago. Both time the eggs ended up outside the cave. With the last spawned the male looked after them for 1 day then I found the eggs outside. I put them back in the cave and 5 hours later I found them outside the cave again.
I use pvc pipe for the spawning cave, is this because the cave is too smooth? How can I fix the problem to help the male look after the eggs?

How deep is the cave? If it's to small they sometimes fanning so much so the eggs comes out or he is disturb so he gets to nervous.
If the eggs ones have get out of the cave the male will not take care of it again, but you can have them in a small container in the breedingtank with a airdriven spongefilter.

Janne

As Janne said, its important to have a deep cave. It has nothing to do with the smoothness of the pipe, but some plecos need a couple of runs to learn not to throw them out or be more careful.


As you can see from this pipecave, its a little longer then the male and its pointing down at a 15-20º angle.

The pipe is about an inch longer than the male catfish.
Maybe it's because I changed the water the next day that it threw the eggs out.
I actually make the surface a bit rough yesterday with sand paper.
By the way the eggs are invaded by fungus and I could see the development of some of the eggs with little tails. Pity it will get taken by fungus.
I am going to build an egg tumbler just in case they threw their eggs again.
Thanks guys.

The fact that they had fungus on them, might be the reason for the male rejecting them, or it's because they where outside the cave to long.
If it's the first spawning it could also be due to the eggs being to long inside the female (old, bad ).

The fungus was found on the eggs after they have been in the open for few hours. I didn't it takes that quick for fungus to grow.
Anyway, maybe I get more success next time.

This morning I saw some of the babies with egg yolk swimming around. About half of them didn't hatched because of the fungus. I think I have about 40 - 50 hatched. Hopefully some of them will survive the first few weeks.
Chill, I now you feed your baby fish with Tetra Tabimin with good success and you only feed them once a day. Do the tablet dissolves easily?
In the past I fed babies of common bristlenose with sera spriluna flakes and they ate it after trying it for 2 days.

Great that some of them survived.

I crush the tablet between my fingers into the floater and turn of the airstone for 20-30 minutes.

Thanks Chill, I'll try your method.