PlanetCatfish.com

Hello,

I read a lot of catfish related articles (especially pleco's) in the last few months. I also read a lot of breeding reports. But in the most of these reports, it seems to me that the fish are kept in a species-only tank (the contrary is never mentioned). First some general questions: I was wondering whether pleco's could be bred in a tank with a few couples of other pleco's, and, does anyone have experiences with this? What are the pro's and contras of this approach? Of course the species that you put together have to be somewhat compatible and the tank should be big enough...

Maybe this question is one of the answers on a previous question, but do related pleco's (f.i. different hypancistrus or peckoltia species in the same tank)easily crossbreed? I know, and I am really convinced, that we have to avoid cross breeding at all costs!

Now some specific questions: At the moment I added a pair of L260(almost 100% sure that they are a pair, but I can not get decent picture of them to post...) in my tank with 5 ancistrus. The tank measures 100x30x30 cm . Initially I put them inthere to give them a temporary home, until I had another tank available for them, but now I am thinking of keeping them together in the same tank. I want to breed both species, would this be possible in a tank with these dimensions? A picture of my tank can be seen in an earlier thread: "is my tank big enough".

I know that I posed a lot of questions but I would really appreciate your thoughts about it.

Thanks,
Wim

I think there's a documented case of and cross-breeding, so I wouldn't rule out that other species would potentially cross-breed too. Not sure about different species of Peckoltia - haven't heard of any instances, but then again it's not impossible that they would cross-breed.

As to breeding in the same tank as other genera, that would be fine. It's just that most breeders will prefer to keep one specie by itself because it's easier to control the conditions for that specie specifically, and not get any other fish upset/interfering when you try to breed a particular specie.

I've had my Ancistrus breed in the same tank as Peckoltia, Baryancistrus and Panaque - no problem caused by this - but then Ancistrus generally breed at the drop of a had, so not really that much to cheer about.

When I get round to trying to breed my Peckoltia's or Panaque's, I'll probably move them to a smaller tank - mainly becuase it's easier to control the conductivity in a 100l tank than it is in a 400l tank - put another way, it takes a whole lot less RO water to get 100l to noticably change conductivity than it takes for 400l, about 4 times more needed in the latter case...

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Mats