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Hello all,

I got inspired by the post of drgold about pictures of gravid females. I think (pretty sure) that I have a female ancistrus that is carrying eggs. My ancistrus are 7cm now, I bought them three months ago when they were about 3 cm. Is it possible that she's full with eggs?
How long does it normally take from the moment they look fat until they actually spawn? She's looking this fat for about a week now. I started saturday morning with an additional powerhead, airstone and I raised the temperature from 24 to 26 °c.

PS: My corydoras that are in the same tank already spawned saturday in the afternoon The ancistrus are very active ( almost hyperactive) I have one male and 4 females, the male is guarding a cave. The fat female seems to be flirting with him: she visits the surroundings of his cave very regularly. But he chases her away...

Regards,

Wim

Budgieman wrote:The fat female seems to be flirting with him: she visits the surroundings of his cave very regularly. But he chases her away...

Wim,

That's fairly typical spawning behaviour. The male will show that he's capable of defending the cave, then he'll let the female in... You'll probably get some babies quite soon. Best of luck.

--
Mats

Hello all,

Just a reply to let you guys know that my ancistrus spawned yesterday. Now you know how long it took my gravid female to spawn. I can not see the eggs in the cave. I am not going to disturb the male who is guarding the cave, but my female is slim again so I guess I can expect free swimming fry within a few days...

Greetz,

Wim

The male may keep them in the cave for 10 or more days

Mine doesn't but, I remove Dad and eggs to a 10g to hatch as the angel tank mates would eat the little guys and my "cave" is open on both ends. When they lay eggs I put it upright on the glass bottom so there is only one entrace but as soon as the eggs hatch the fry can escape mine.

Hello nightowl,

With a few days I meant "some" days, wrong choice of words, my fault

10 days, well it's a long time when your curious, I really hope to see a gleam of the fry a little sooner...

A few days isn't too far off as it only takes about 4 days for the eggs to hatch into what with many other fish are called wigglers. They have the huge egg sac and can't swim very well, but they can use that sucker mouth to stick to the glass or other things.

I get to see mine close up and they can swim, but not well and if another fish wanted to eat them they would be very easy to pick off.