Home-made pleco spawning caves

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dw1305
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by dw1305 »

Hi all,
Jobro wrote: 21 Nov 2018, 12:43On the other hand, while I used alderwood for tank decoration, I found it to be easy prey for plecos and it might not dissolve fast due to water and bacteria but due to their appetite. The wood seems pretty soft and therefore is a welcomed addition to any panaqolus diet......
That is useful to know, it is quite a soft wood.

cheers Darrel
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by panaque »

My spawn in oak caves and it takes them about a year to chew through a 1cm thick wall. I also have beech and oak from my local woods in their tank and they REALLY like the beech. It disappears about three times as fast as the oak. So what I’m getting at is that you may need to experiment with wall thickness when you use these beech wood caves for Panaqolus.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

panaque wrote: 21 Nov 2018, 20:13 My spawn in oak caves and it takes them about a year to chew through a 1cm thick wall. I also have beech and oak from my local woods in their tank and they REALLY like the beech. It disappears about three times as fast as the oak. So what I’m getting at is that you may need to experiment with wall thickness when you use these beech wood caves for Panaqolus.
This fast? Oh wow insane...

Oak comes at about double the price of beech from what I can find. Oak would have been my wood of choice, but costs led me to beech. Beech should be pretty much as hard as oak going by brinell hardness. *Phew* I hope these caves will hold longer than a year...
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by dw1305 »

Hi all,
Jobro wrote: 22 Nov 2018, 12:32Beech should be pretty much as hard as oak going by brinell hardness.
I wonder if it is the tannin content of the Oak (Quercus) wood that makes it less palatable than the Beech wood?

cheers Darrel
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

dw1305 wrote: 22 Nov 2018, 14:05 I wonder if it is the tannin content of the Oak (Quercus) wood that makes it less palatable than the Beech wood?
Might be worth a scientific essay :D Subjects like these are so hard to investigate in private means :-\

Here some shots of the process:
Tools used are wood lewis bits ("schlangenbohrer" in german)
IMAG0393.jpg
For now I got 26, 28, 30, 36 and 40mm diamaters. Might add up 32, 34 and 38mm later.

The wood:
IMAG0394.jpg
2x 100x4cm, 2x 100x5cm

My Lathe / Mill
IMAG0395.jpg

Had to machine some special collets to hold the wood, even the hardest woods are still too soft...
IMAG0396.jpg

The wood fits snuggly in there :)
IMAG0398.jpg
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

Cut some 40mm pieces. shorter and longer ones. Will make 26 and 28mm caves for my smaller species.
IMAG0397.jpg
What looks like a little step in between these pictures is actually a lot of time consuming work. Just mounting the wood centric and making a center hole before actually drilling is taking up a lot of time. And still each cave will come out a little different. Machining metall seems to be way easier than wood :d
IMAG0400.jpg
Next step is sanding the inside of the cave. Another time eater...

here I prepared some smaller pieces for the lids /caps.
IMAG0401.jpg
Since every cave is different (meaning different in measured hole diameter as well as center of the hole - the pain and beauty of working with nature's materials) I have to fit every cap to it's cave. Meaning, a cap might not fit another cave. You can imagine the amount of manual labor put into this process.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

Machining a lid/cap:
IMAG0483.jpg
When it fits, I will mount it in the cave.
IMAG0484.jpg
And sand the cave with its lid/cap
IMAG0485.jpg
finished cap and cave:
IMAG0487.jpg
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

Finished caves:
IMAG0490.jpg
IMAG0489.jpg
IMAG0488.jpg
Tomorrow I will boil these and show you how they deform.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Jobro »

A bunch of caves ready for boiling:
IMAG0513.jpg
And here is where I made a fatal mistake...
IMAG0514.jpg
All the caves fit so nicely into the pot and I was quite happy to not have to boil twice, that I forgot they would extend during the process...
IMAG0516.jpg
They deformed each other badly and ended up stuck pretty hard in the pot :D
I managed to remove them. The caps /ends still fit good. Haha they look pretty natural now. And even more unique... But this should give you a glimpse of how they will expand during boiling.


On the good side. I added these caves yesterday and finally found my L204 male claiming a cave after not doing anything of the like for the last year... So I am pretty happy with these deformed wood caves for now :d
IMAG0523.jpg
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

On a whim, after reading a FB post about plecos breeding in a transparent glass ball, I tried to imagine other, more cave-like (in shape/proportion) glass objects that might substitute as breeding caves. I picked up these four green glass vases for $4USD total (for all 4, not each). They are 8"/20cm deep, 2.13"/5.4cm wide at their mouth, and 1.67"/4.3cm wide at their narrow neck.

Not knowing their past, they may have held plant fertilizers or worse (as a flower vase), so before use I washed each with gentle soap and hot water then I'm leaving them to soak overnight in clean rinse water.

I'm always searching for slightly larger than 1.5" diameter cave for the mustard spots. Let's try these caves with them.

Wishfully,
Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Here's another good example of caves and tubes made out of oak, these by @MarcW: Re: Marc's fish room build.

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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

These two wooden pleco condos were made by Dan Griff (Dangriff), shared on FaceBook.

The single large block he made first, but he recognized that it wouldn't be convenient for removing eggs or fry, so before making the second block, he split the wood onto three parts, so that individual pieces can be removed more easily for egg/fry recovery.

Dan said the first one is going to a mate after the lockdown, the second one is still soaking in a bucket, neither have been in a tank yet. The holes are 32mm and 38mm and all 10-13cm deep. Dan plans to use the second set (the three-part block) for his L306 group as they love eating wood and hopefully he can get them to spawn in the wood caves.

Thank you, Dan, for sharing.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by TwoTankAmin »

@bekateen

Eric- how did things work out with the 4 green glass caves? I have always wondered about using clear glass somehow, at least in the back end of a cave, to be able to see what was going on. However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning. Cave backs are pretty dark places. Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves? Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?

The only thing I have noticed re caves over the years is my zebras seemed to like slate, my 236 liked flattened type caves until they got too big for them and the rest did not care all that much. I also wonder how much of the preference for tight spaces is due to their defensive property. If it is a tight squeeze for a given pleco, it wont allow something larger in.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

TwoTankAmin wrote: 03 May 2020, 18:37Eric- how did things work out with the 4 green glass caves? I have always wondered about using clear glass somehow, at least in the back end of a cave, to be able to see what was going on. However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning. Cave backs are pretty dark places. Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves? Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?
Good question. For me, they were a failure. Not as far as I could tell because of the glass but because the mouths were too wide. None of my clay caves of the same diameter get used either. I need to find smaller glasses and try again.
Also, how well can you see inside one of those green tinted caves?
I can see in very well.
However, I also wondered if allowing light into the back end of a cave might have some effect on spawning.... Cave backs are pretty dark places. Does the absence of light benefit wigglers?

The only thing I have noticed re caves over the years is my zebras seemed to like slate, my 236 liked flattened type caves until they got too big for them and the rest did not care all that much. I also wonder how much of the preference for tight spaces is due to their defensive property. If it is a tight squeeze for a given pleco, it wont allow something larger in.
I think your observations and concerns are spot on. I can tell you my L052 like flat sided medium rectangular caves (I use the clay caves from plecocaves.com, here). The L052 ignore the round and D shaped caves. The only non-cave spawns the L052 have done were two which occured under cobblestones which were slightly off the tank floor.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by fishguy1978 »

Great thread. Glad I found it. Last fall (2019) my younger 2 took a pottery class and I mentioned the idea of making my own caves. Their teacher gave me several pounds of food grade clay to use. I made 5 with different lengths and diameters and squished to make a "flat" side so that they won't roll. My male BN only uses one cave. I left an opening at both ends on one cave and it is only temporarily occupied.
I have been given 30-40lbs more of terra cota clay from a retired art teacher but it is dried out and needs to be softened. I tried to acquire her kiln but it was promised to someone else.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by fishguy1978 »

Jobro wrote: 27 Nov 2018, 20:10 Finished caves:

IMAG0490.jpg
IMAG0489.jpg
IMAG0488.jpg

Tomorrow I will boil these and show you how they deform.
Why drill all the way through? A forstner bit would leave a flat bottom/end. I'm considering doing this same thing except with tree branches.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by YSR50 »

fishguy1978 wrote: 07 May 2020, 21:58 Why drill all the way through? A forstner bit would leave a flat bottom/end. I'm considering doing this same thing except with tree branches.
Easier to remove eggs/fry with a capped end
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Mart1996 »

Jools wrote: 02 Oct 2015, 19:51 That's rock. Hypancistrus, Baryancistrus, Spectracanthicus, Parancistrus, Ancistrus and Squaliforma to name most but not all.

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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by fishguy1978 »

I picked up an 1.5in (38mm) forstner bit and am going to drill into my madrona log in the 90g. I have 1in (25mm) holes and one 2in (50mm) hole currently. The plan is to enlarge the 1in holes. I have seen the male has taken occupancy of one already but I'm concerned that if the female is trapped she won't be able to exit.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by fishguy1978 »

The male is guarding a clutch in one of the fresh 25mm holes. I added two alder wood caves to the p. Maccus tank that are 38mm diameter and maybe 10 cm deep. I think think the 38mm is too big for the p. maccus and will add some 25mm caves.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Congratulations!

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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Birger »

I think a selection of caves is more important than one cave that is very specific in size and material
, give the fish the choice.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by fishguy1978 »

I collected some alder pieces yesterday. 2 are approx 50mm dia and 2 are 100mm dia. I used a 25mm and a 31mm spade bit to drill caves in each. The 50mm logs have a single cave at 25mm while the 100mm have two 25mm at one end and a single 31mm at the opposite end. These all went in with the p. maccus housed in a 29g.
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by Tinito »

bekateen wrote: 02 Oct 2015, 19:11 Hi All,

One of the downsides about having a hobby like fish keeping is that you might get accused of using your time unwisely. I suppose this is valid sometimes... for example, when your house is on fire and your kids are still inside, but... but you need to finish a water change because nitrate levels are 30ppm... But besides that...

Anyway, one of the upsides about having this hobby is the opportunity to explore, learn, and challenge yourself. To that end, I've been reading a lot of the old posts by people who've chosen to create their own DIY pleco spawning caves, and I thought I would give it a go myself.

Here is my first attempt: I chose to use natural terra cotta clay instead of synthetic clay, mainly because some people have expressed concerns that the polymers in synthetic clay may be harmful to fish over long periods of time, especially since some plecos have a habit of chewing the surfaces of their caves. Of course, the downside to this choice is that I'll have to locate a kiln to fire the caves when I'm done forming them. That's taken care of; I contacted a local pottery guild/club, and they told me that they will fire my caves when I'm ready (hopefully my caves are made well enough that they don't crack during firing :-SS).

I bought 10 pounds (4.5kg) of clay (price: $10 USD), and I used about 1/6 of that (probably much less) to make my first cave; I'll use up all the clay before I take the caves to get fired.

To make this first cave, I started with some small square wood sticks, each cut about 1/4 inch think, and placed them about 8 inches apart on a flat glass cutting board covered with wax paper. I placed the clay in between these wood sticks and covered the clay with more wax paper; then I rolled the clay flat, down to the thickness of the wood sticks (i.e., I made my cave wall 1/4 inch thick) using a plastic extension tube from a vacuum cleaner as a rolling pin (come on, I wasn't going to use my kitchen rolling pin on clay! It's used for baking food. Duh.) I removed the sticks and upper wax paper, then cut the clay to a 7.5" x 7.5" square. Once I reached this step, I followed the technique shown in this YouTube video: Making a triangle breeding cave for fish. From start to finish, this part of the process took less than one hour.

My first cave is triangular, just over 6 inches long and the entrance is 2 inches wide along each edge of the triangle. The entrance is also curved inward to create a lip on all edges, to help retain eggs. Given its length, I didn't mean to make the cave so wide and short; I didn't anticipate how much of its length I would lose when I folded in the bottom, and I overestimated the circumference of the tube as I measured the width of the clay sheet I started with. As a result, I may have created a cave that is potentially rather useless, because any male pleco which is short enough to accept a 6 inch deep cave may not be wide enough with his fins to successfully block the entrance and trap females. I guess I'll just have to give it a try.

For future caves, I plan to make some round ones, and some rectangular ones; I've also read that some plecos like caves with side entrances, so I may try making one of those. Definitely, I'll make some caves with smaller diameters, since most of my plecos are pretty small (all are currently under 5" SL) and I'll also make some of the tubes much longer/deeper. I saw another YouTube video (Making a wood textured tunnel breeding cave for fish) which demonstrates how you can impress a "wood grain" onto the cave before you roll the cave into a tube; I may give that a try also on a few of these.

Also, I probably didn't need to make the walls of the cave 1/4 inch thick; I chose this thickness because that was the thickness of the wood sticks I had already. I could go thinner on future caves, but as you can imagine, as the caves get thinner, the clay gets harder to work with, and I risk thin spots which could break easier when sculpting and firing. That said, I just may stick with the 1/4 inch thickness, at least until I use up these 10 pounds of clay (unless someone can give me a reason to change).

So my questions for you are these:
  • I know that my and albino BNs are perfectly happy using regular circular caves for spawning. But so far, my show no interest in the round caves I've placed in their quarantine tank. Does anybody know what shapes of caves they will prefer? Should I just assume "circular" since that is what my Panaqolus maccus like?
  • I still plan to get at my earliest opportunity. Although there are no breeding reports for them, I'm assuming that they are similar to other . What shape caves do favor? (I've seen one photo of green phantoms spawning in caves with a D-shaped opening - is that best?)
  • Before I go making all the other shapes, maybe I should figure out if these would even be helpful to me, i.e., will I ever own plecos that would need these caves. So to that end, what types of plecos prefer caves with SIDE ENTRANCES? What types of plecos prefer caves shaped like FLAT BURRITOS (a circular tube, but very compressed vertically)? What types of plecos prefer the SQUARE caves, like those that are made out of sheets of slate rock, glued together?
Thanks for your help.

Cheers, Eric
Hi Eric, is that clay air drying thou? I'm looking to buy some clay to make my caves, but I can't find anything and Suppliers don't know of the clay is safe for aquarium or no?
Cheers
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

Hi Martin,

No, air-dry clay will not stay together in the tank. It needs to be kiln-fired. I know some people use the oven-baked polymer clay, but I'm not comfortable using that material in case it's got any residual toxic chemicals.

Best,
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bekateen
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

@ridout might be able to direct you to proper clay in the UK.

Good luck,
Eric
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bekateen
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by bekateen »

For anyone wanting to use manufactured caves but also wants to make them more decorative or inconspicuous, there's this:

Hide caves for pleco

There's also a video in that thread:
My caves for pleco
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sturiosoma
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by sturiosoma »

All of my spawns have taken place in a ice cream cone shape cave even with all of the other shapes available, top pic has a active spawn as of 12- 19, and then 3 caves north there is a active trapping as of 12-23 never had a spawn in a square cave and my whiptails will only use a round cave, I'm hoping Santa brings food for the fry

Jeanne
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Re: Home-made pleco spawning caves

Post by smitty »

I love it. You got it going on.
150gal- No Plecos; 3 AC 110 P.Filters; 2 AC P.Heads; Eheim2217, 2260
180gal- Plecos (9): L001/L022 (1M), L023, L083/L165, L137, L190, Rhino (1M, 1F), Trinidad (2); 3 AC 110 P.Filters; 2 AC 110 P.Heads; Eheim 2217,2260; Fluval FX5
210gal- Plecos (5): L014 (2), L050; 4 AC P.Filters; 2AC P.Heads; Eheim 2250,2262; Fluval FX5;
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