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Hello everybody

I have 8 L183 in my 110 litre tank. The 8 fish is about 9-10 centimetre and they are about 1½ year old.

I have the fish with the target to breed them, because I think it is interesting to breed fish, as many of you. My problem is that I can not find much information about the size of the fish and age by breeding?

What is your experiences about age and size when you breed them first time?

Thanks in advance!

The should be adults at the size you cited.

Thank you Apistomaster, but I heard from somebody that they had to be about 15 centimetre before they spawn. Maybe it just was their fish..

As far as I know, there is some disagreement about the maximum size of the fish, some say 10 cm. others say 15-20 cm. But I will continue my attempts to get them to spawn now. On Wednesday there will be a low pressure against the country, then combined with plenty of protein feed, we must see what happens. Maybe they are just small enough yet and I have to wait until after Christmas to try again.

I have wild caught L183 imported from Manaus, Brazil (Rio Negro) and they are between 10 and 12 cm (4 and 5 inches US). I keep them in ~27degree C temp (82 F) with wood to chew. My water comes out of the tap at 8 pH, 160 to 200 kh, but I think the wood buffers the pH down a bit and perhaps absorbs some minerals, although I have never tested the tank water. The tank is bare bottomed. I tend to let the chewed wood collect in the bottom of the tank and only vacuum some out once a month, it seems rather dirty. They took several months to settle in (may have had to acclimate to my African cichlid ready tap water) and did not breed until I added clay breeding cones and did large water changes (simulate dry/wet season change). They now breed regularly with a pause when I disrupt them to collect the fry.
Yours should breed at that size. They seem to like the mulm at the bottom of the tank and the large water change I think stimulates breeding.
I have been told that tank raised L183 do not grow as large as those in the wild. 15 cm (~6inches) is not unheard of in the wild, but if they were ~25cm, I would say you have L182.
(I measure to the tip of the tail)

Thank you for your answers
My new pH-tester will arrieve today, so I can control the water. I use rain-water, so I think my pH is about 6-6.5.

Identifying L183 is about the easiest of all Ancistrus, as they have a larger number of rays in the dorsal fin than other Ancistrus species. If the number of rays counts to 8, then they are not true L183. There are a few different species that look pretty similar.

--
Mats

It is the real L183, thats sure
Here is a picture, from when they were young (now they are about 9-10 cm).
My L183 are youngs from wild caught fishes.

I have just counted the dorsal rays. There was 9 soft and 1 hard ray.

You have true A. dolichopterus.

--
Mats

Nice

Hi,

as here has been some confusion about L 183, I'd like to comment a few things.

As already mentionned yours are definetly L 183.
But even with 8 soft dorsal fin rays L 183 would still be possible. Mostly they have 9 soft rays, seldomly 8 or 10.

There have been imports with more than 25 cm of this species (see the Mergus catfish catalogue of Ingo Seidl). But I have never heard of any aquarium bred or raised specimen reaching this size. I think in general you can then expect them to reach "just" 15..18 cm (everything given as total length).

If the males show well developped bristles all around the nose you can assume maturity usually at a size of about 10 cm and a age of one year or slightly more. The first spawns that I noted were with 15 months and about 12 cm.

Cheers,
Karsten

kamas88 wrote:Hi,

as here has been some confusion about L 183, I'd like to comment a few things.

As already mentionned yours are definetly L 183.
But even with 8 soft dorsal fin rays L 183 would still be possible. Mostly they have 9 soft rays, seldomly 8 or 10.

There have been imports with more than 25 cm of this species (see the Mergus catfish catalogue of Ingo Seidl). But I have never heard of any aquarium bred or raised specimen reaching this size. I think in general you can then expect them to reach "just" 15..18 cm (everything given as total length).

If the males show well developped bristles all around the nose you can assume maturity usually at a size of about 10 cm and a age of one year or slightly more. The first spawns that I noted were with 15 months and about 12 cm.

Cheers,
Karsten

Thank you a lot Karsten.
Can you tell a little about your water parametres? For an examble your pH?

Hello Jacob,

the pH is usuall around 6,0 in this tank with very soft water (nearly no calcium carbonate: KH ~1°), temperature ~28 °C.
They have not been very picky with respect to the caves, they have spawned in natural wooden caves but also in caves of schist or clay.

Cheers,
Karsten

kamas88 wrote:Hello Jacob,

the pH is usuall around 6,0 in this tank with very soft water (nearly no calcium carbonate: KH ~1°), temperature ~28 °C.
They have not been very picky with respect to the caves, they have spawned in natural wooden caves but also in caves of schist or clay.

Cheers,
Karsten

Thank you Karsten, now I have something to go after!