Problems growing out common Ancistrus

wayne · Post by **wayne** » 28 Jan 2003, 10:15

Hello - as a warm up for harder fish I'm trying to breed/raise common ancistrus. I currently have a batch growing out. However of the original 60 approx, I'm down to 30 and a few. This sems o me a higher rate of dieoff than I expected - any comments?
Fish are in a 5 gallon or 30 litre tank kept at 26C. Filtration is by a 400 l/h internal to keep water movement high. I'm changing 3 litres of water 3 times a day.
The young don't seem to struggle with the current so I don't that's a problem. Food is a real mix - crushed sunken flake and 'green' flake, spinach, squashed mysis.
What am I doing wrong?

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 28 Jan 2003, 20:04

Hi!
Have you checked the parameters of your water?
Are your sure that every youngster get enough food?
Do you prepare the water in advance.
Do you use any particular product, add anything to the water?
Cheers
Yann

wayne · Post by **wayne** » 30 Jan 2003, 10:33

Actually the water is from the tap, then warmed with a % of heated water. I have almost perfect tap water, and it's almost unchlorinated. pH 7.7, 4 gH, 0 -1 kH. No contaminants that are easily tested for. Sounds unlikely, yes, but true - this is the same water change protocol as I've used to grow out several apistogramma species, and I think they're pretty fussy, so I have some faith.
I think the problem might be the filter. I think it's' too efficient at removing food. What do most people use - a very large air driven sponge?

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 30 Jan 2003, 10:39

Hi!

Well You could unpluged the filter for a short period so the fish could calmly eat. This is what i do with my tanks, when the water flow is very huge! And the work pretty good. Sure you have to member to plug it back!
To avoid forgetting pluging it back you can fix the on the plug in the minuiter , the same stuff use with the light controlling system ( of course you wil need to buy another one) You setup a time for the filter to stop( when you give food) and set up the time for him to switch back on!!!
Cheers
Yann

Post by **Barbie** » 30 Jan 2003, 17:05

My baby albino bristlenose eat a huge quantity of food, in comparison to their size. I keep them in a 20 gallon long tank, and I can barely keep the water parameters in line with a small back filter as a backup, and a large powerhead and prefilter sponge. The fry will actually graze from the sponge surface if they've consumed all their food before dinner time, I've noticed. Are you feeding any blanched romaine? Or zucchini? I try to keep one or the other in the tank at all times, and I feed additional spirulina wafers, graze flake, and even some meat based sinking pellets that I have along with the veggies, a couple times a week. I've lost multiple fry a couple times, when they had run out of food before I got home from work. The constant source of romaine and zucchini has helped some with that.

Something you might take into consideration... Apistos will have a brood of 30 or so at a time, but their sheer body mass is maybe a quarter of what the plecos will be, so their wastes will be building up quite a bit faster in a small tank like that. If you had some way to set the tank up on a mini central system with a larger tank, either with just a covered overflow and a canister filter, or something more elaborate, you could give them much more stable water parameters, IME. Mine seem to completely ignore the strong water flow from the powerhead, and the sponge filter is definitely an asset for them.

Hope that helps at all.

Barbie

wayne · Post by **wayne** » 31 Jan 2003, 10:41

Thanks for all your help! I now think it's because I'm not feeding enough, plus the filter is 'sucking up' between meals when it's on (between meals). I'm going to try a huge sponge filter instead, so they can graze on it's surface.