LoricReproFAQs

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Reproduction FAQs on Loricariids, South and Central American Suckermouth Cats

Large "Pleco" species are best bred, raised in (heated) ponds.

Mystery baby plecosumus... I'll say! 9/24/08
Hi,
<Lori>
I have a 44 gallon tank with one large 6 inch dark brown spotted plecostomus, who has been with me for 2 ys. Two siclids yellow and blue who have been with me for 11 mo, and one small Chinese algae eater, and two tetras for 3 yrs. I suddenly have a suddenly noted a small tan Pleco looking fellow in his body shape.
<?>
He also has stripes more like my Chinese algae eater. I have no clue where he came from, since my newest additions are the siclids 11 mo.s ago. Can my Chinese algae eater and my Pleco mate, and have a viable offspring?
<No>
Thanks
Lori
<Two very disparate families of fishes. Bob Fenner>

Re: mystery baby plecosumus 9/24/08
Ok, but where did he come from? Could it have been an egg in the water of my last purchase 11 mo.s ago?
Lori
<Mmm, likely someone bought it and placed it in your tank. B>

Re: Native fishkeeping; Ancistrus repro 8/11/08
Hi Neale,
<Silvia,>
So, you live in the UK. For some reason I thought you live in America. Probably because WetWebMedia is an American site, or is it? At least I thought so.
<I am not a citizen of Athens or of Greece, but of the world!>
I know that Britain has some nice places with nearly Mediterranean climate.
<"Nearly" being the operative word! It's perhaps better to say the UK has a climate that doesn't change much, between about 5 C in winter to about 25 C in summer, but rarely much above or below those values. So we don't tend to be as cold as Northern Europe or most of the continental USA, but neither do we get the long hot summers of, say, Australia or Southern Europe.>
When I was at Uni I went there with a group of friends. It was a holiday with all sorts of weather and climates, from rain and cold to sunny and hot but we really enjoyed it.
<Ah, yes, the weather is notoriously changeable. This is a factor of the "battle" between the warm Atlantic oceanic weather system (the Gulf Stream) and the cold Arctic weather system. Neither "wins" for long, and at a moments notice it can change from dry to wet. Air temperature tends not to vary much, though windy and wet weather can add a certain chill to the climate. I've lived for a few years in the American Midwest where the climate in winter was much much colder. And yet, despite temperatures of -10 C or less, it never felt as "miserable" because the air was dry and the precipitation was snow rather than rain. English winters are incredibly depressing, made worse by the short day lengths, in December barely 8 hours!>
Regarding to the keeping, here you have it again. the native species are not attractive enough, or is it the exotic side of it?
<Oh, we do have some lovely native fish. I have sticklebacks in my pond, and the males turn metallic green with sapphire blue eyes and bright red bellies. At university I kept coldwater marines, including a blenny known as the Shanny, and it's like a mudskipper, coming onto land when it gets too warm or just feels like a change. The problem is that there's a lack of information re: keeping Natives.>
What a shame! I don't know what we have in Germany, but certainly not such a diversity in marine life.
<Mainland Europe actually isn't bad. There are lots of cyprinids, many of which make excellent pets being tolerant of room temperature and relatively small bodies of water. I have some Carassius carassius in a fry-rearing tank and they're fun. Sticklebacks, killifish, small minnows, loaches, etc. can all make good pets.>
And I don't know much about the freshwater side either but I remember that friends at school told me they were going to the local creeks and catching sticklebacks to keep in jars. That would be the equivalent to our rainbows here.
<Pretty much, except Sticklebacks are very aggressive! Much used in behavioural experiments. Do read 'King Solomon's Ring' by Konrad Lorenz. He's the "father of animal behaviour studies" and a great fan of fish, writing at length on cichlids and sticklebacks.>
I had a busy week which ended with a nice weekend. Friday night was another one of our ANGFA meetings which was again very interesting. We have such a wonderful wintertime. Sunny and warm, like 22 degrees Celsius/72 Fahrenheit (do you use Celsius or Fahrenheit in the UK?) during the day and no cloud on the sky.
<Anyone below the age of 40 uses Celsius.>
That always amazes me, even after 10 years. Nights are cold with only 5 degrees Celsius/41 Fahrenheit. It is such a treat to walk along the beach in the morning. Next weekend we are going up the North Coast, about 3 hours drive from our place, to fish for rainbows and such. I am not very sure about the water temperature but it seems to me we will end up with cold feet.
<Sounds fun!>
So far the Bristlenose has done a marvelous job. The youngsters are coming out now. The Corys laid eggs again on Friday. I did a water change on Thursday. I still use water from outside. I have a big water tank under the sails. Original it was our outdoor eating area until we build the big pavilion. Now one of the tanks is underneath and catches the rain water. It is more like a big 500 litre/125 gallon bucket with a removable lid. I get very clean water there and use it for water changes till I run out. Than I have to switch to tap water.
<I also use rainwater, 50:50 with tap water to get medium hard water ideal for most tropical fish.>
That is often the case in winter. The surface of the water was 22 degrees, which is the same as in the tank inside, due to the sun but further down the temperature was down to 19. For the fish it must have seem like rainy season and promptly laid eggs the day after.
<Correct. Corydoras in particular use sudden changes in temperature as an indication the rainy season has started, and then spawn.>
It works all the time :)
<Yep. Ditto with Danios and quite a few other fish.>
I didn't intend to harvest the eggs but my daughter couldn't help it. She noticed my "funny" looking female. What happened was that she hadn't closed the fins properly while laying the eggs and two were attached to a little pebble which she lifted when she took off to deposit them. The pebble stuck to the glass as well. I don't worry much about the eggs. I am sure many will not make it. But the other little kittens are all good and very busy during the day. I hope I can keep them long enough in the container and than tip them into the net with the Bristlenose kittens once I removed daddy.
<Should work fine.>
I am not sure that inbreeding is the only reason for the angelfish's bad parenting skills. Learning or the lack of it might be another one. Many of them are "hand-reared" on farms. I think the parenting skills are partly learned skills and partly instinct.
<It's a topic of discussion among Angelfish keepers, and likely a mix of both factors. Certainly hand rearing the fry removes the selection pressure in favour of good parenting, so that dimwit parents produce just as many healthy fry as well behaved parents. So over the generations, Angelfish have lost their good parenting skills. Some aquarists do maintain that letting them "practise" a few times does the trick, but that was not my experience at all. And most other cichlids (wild caught at least) seem to get it right first time, or at least very quickly. A lot of tank bred cichlids (kribs and convicts, for example) are also very reliable. So it's complex. May well be Angels were never that smart or that good at parenting to begin with! How often do you find beauty and brains in the same body!>
Cheers
Silvia
<Cheers, Neale.>

What do I do with extra Otocinclus? 5/30/07
I have a 5 gal. Eclipse Corner Tank on my desk at work. There were 2 Betta's (with a divider) in it, but when I added 3 Oto's from PetSmart soon after the Betta's died of tail/fin rot. I moved them to separate bowls, and treated them but they died. I figured it was the addition of the Oto's so I expected them to die as well. That didn't happen. They cleaned my tank of all algae, and I feared they would have nothing to eat because it seems they won't eat the algae flakes. So, I went to my buddy's Cichlid tank and traded all the ornaments (no, I don't know if this was a smart thing to do or not, but I did it anyway). It seemed, that this brought new life to the Oto's, as very soon after I spotted little white things on the front of the tank. When I realized it was fry, I shut off the filter. I counted about 12 fry stuck the glass. I turned to the internet for advice and found little. I put a baby sock rubber banded over the filter intake and turned that back on. Added an air pump for them. I fed them boiled spinach leaves. Well, a spinach leaf from a coworkers salad stuffed in a cup of hot water. They ate little holes in that overnight. I do a 50% water change weekly, and slowly suck out the leftover food every few days to keep the substrate somewhat clean. Now I keep exchanging plants with my buddy's Cichlid tank for food and they clean it overnight. There are now 4 or 5 baby's left and they are half the size of the adults and seem to be doing fine. My question is, what can I do with these extra Oto's? Can they go in the Cichlid tank? Isn't that too much hardness for a Cichlid? Or can I support 7 to 8 Oto's in a 5 gal tank? PetSmart told me that they stock the same sex in the same tank and sell them that way so this wouldn't happen. Well they screwed up and now I have these new guy's. What do people do with their new fish when they didn't mean or even know they would spawn?
<Wow. This is quite an amazing tale! On the one hand, a 5 gallon tank is really too small for Otocinclus. As a group, Otocinclus are considered "delicate" because they need good water quality and lots of oxygen. In most community tanks, they tend to be short lived. But yours are doing well, so well done! Anyway, as to where to put the Otocinclus. I personally wouldn't mix them with anything other than, perhaps, South American or West African dwarf cichlids. The problems are multiple. Firstly, yes, they will not do well in Lake Malawi/Lake Tanganyika type aquaria. Such hard and alkaline water conditions will not suit them at all. Secondly, when kept with slow moving things like angelfish and discus they tend to suck the sides of the bigger fish, scraping off the mucous. I've seen this in my own tanks, with the Otocinclus rasping away on large gobies, creating nasty blisters. Aggressive fish like convict cichlids will simply hammer them to death. So ideally, give them to someone with a peaceful community of other small fish such as barbs and tetras. PetSmart cannot possibly sex Otocinclus so their advice there was nonsense. In fact, breeding Otocinclus is quite uncommon, so you've actually done rather well.>
Tom
<Cheers, Neale>

Spawning Rio de para Pleco 11/19/06
Hi. I've heard that the Rio de para Pleco (L75) has not been spawned in captivity yet. Is this true?
Thanks,
Kelly
<Mmm, am not that "up" on such matters with Loricariids... Would seek out your answer through "Planet Catfish", other FW BB's that have a good number of Siluriiform membership. Bob Fenner>

Breeding Otocinclus ... Neat!   6/22/06
Greetings, and thank you for your site, it has a wealth of information. I was particularly excited to see a letter from Andrea Hall entitled "Tiny White Bugs in a FW Set Up  - 03/25/2006" in the "FAQs on Otocinclus".   I don't have a question for you, but rather I'd like to make a comment about that letter and relate an experience of my own. Andrea expressed concern over some little white specks she had discovered in her tank when examining her Otocinclus which "was more than just plump, it was huge" and had submitted photo's of her Oto and the specks.   One reply from Chuck suggested they were probably a form of daphnia, RMF suggested that they indeed were likely to have been fry.   I had an experience with my two Otocinclus this past weekend which would confirm that they are indeed fry. This past Saturday my wife mentioned to me that she had noticed the previous evening that the Oto's appeared to be spawning, I took a look and found that it seemed they were, the female's belly was extremely distended - probably two to three times its normal size. The male who normally paid little to no attention to her was frantically following her around the aquarium. As she seemed to stop and clean a spot of glass or a plant leaf he would cling to her or next to her, sometimes wrapping his body around the top of her head so the two of them formed a "T" shape, and sometimes clinging to her back or side.   Searching the internet I found precious little in regards to Otocinclus spawning, but I did find that the behaviour was supposed to be a fairly common mating routine among their relatives. So I assumed that they were breeding. The behaviour continued for many hours.   The following day the females belly was back to her normal size and the two were back to their normal routine - eating, resting, and pretty much ignoring each other. I tried to find eggs in the tank but was unable to see anything. While looking for eggs
though, I found the same little white specks throughout the tank as Andrea described, they were everywhere, numbering easily in to the hundreds. And, as Andrea described, they moved much the same as the full-grown Oto's.  I too, thought they may be some kind of invader in my tank, but found the coincidence of their arrival and my Oto's deciding to spawn just a bit too convenient. So assumed they were fry. Then today I ran across Andrea's photo's on your FAQ page. My fry look exactly like her white specs.   I'm just as shocked as I am excited, this is a small five gallon tank that I keep slightly brackish for the sake of the green spotted puffer who was it's sole occupant until putting the two Otocinclus in to eat the algae about three or four months ago. I felt bad about putting them in that tank, feeling the salt content may be to high for them, but they have thrived and by this recent sequence of events I'd judge them to be quite content in their home. Incidentally, the salt content is about 1 teaspoon per gallon, half of which is aquarium salt and half marine salt. I am sending you links to video I took of the spawning and of the fry. They are quite large videos not too suited for dial up connections, and even on high speed will take about a minute to load. If you'd like links to video more suited to dial up let me know and I will make them available. Link to breeding video :
http://www.farrant.info/video/Otocinclus_breeding.wmv
Link to video of fry : http://www.farrant.info/video/Baby_Otocinclus.wmv
I'd be very interested in any comments anyone may have, and very grateful to any tips anyone may have to help me raise the fry successfully. I have rounded up any plants and algae laden materials I could find from my other tanks to help supply them with food as well as making a broccoli paste for them. The puffer is getting moved to a different tank, I have turned off the filter so their pinpoint bodies don't get sucked in - to help compensate I have increased the airflow in the tanks bubbler and am doing daily trickle water changes with aged water. Thank you, Bill Farrant
< One of the great things about the internet and this website is the information that gets passed around. Oto's are very cheap algae eaters than many breeders have no interest in breeding because there is no money in breeding them. That is why you have had trouble finding any info. In the previous letter you referred to, I was unable to bring up the photo and wrongly assumed they were daphnia. Bob was able to get the photo up and posted on the website. I looked back and saw the photo and knew that they were fry. This information is very useful because there are many other Oto species that are very attractive but very expensive too. Breeders may be willing to obtain these new species if they knew how to breed them. Thank you very much for sharing this info.-Chuck>

Angels and Clowns
I have a 90 gallon show tank. It is decorated with wood, a single large piece of holey limestone, black gravel and floating plastic bamboo plants...sort of a sparse Zen look. It has clown loaches (2"-4")... they eat out of my hand...and Bushynose Plecos... the Plecos are actually breeding on a routine basis.
The pH is 7.2, temperature is 80 degrees, and ammonia and nitrite are zero. It has been up and running for 18 months. I use two Emperor 400s. I change 10% of the water daily and wash out the filer pads in the process.
I want to add a few angelfish. Are they compatible with the clown loaches? The loaches are pretty active sometimes. Also, would the angelfish help control the Pleco population? My LFS gives me $2 each for them...several hundred dollars so far... but it is a hassle to take everything out of the tank to catch them and it disturbs the fish.
>> You should be able to add some angels, but please start with medium sized fish, the activity of the clown loaches at night may bother the small angels. They will, unfortunately, eat some of your baby Bristlenose Plecos. If you want to catch your Bristlenose babies without having to take the tank apart try putting some food (romaine lettuce, tied to an airstone) at night, with a net underneath it. The baby Plecos will enter the net from the top and swim down to eat the lettuce in the stream of bubbles. Use a flashlight to see when Plecos are in your net and lift! Good Luck, Oliver <<

Frog Spawn
Hello again, Thank you Don for your help a little while ago, you majorly calmed me down, and everything is AWESOME.
I had acquired fish from a friend and a tank on Christmas. refer to "Suddenly Stocked Tank", WWM FAQs.) Well everything is going great, have done 6 water changes since I got the fish. All my levels are looking great (I think those established bio-wheels really helped). I got some ghost shrimp today, just to clean a little.
Well my question is, I have noticed clear sacks with yellow dots in them in the bottom of one of my plants, kind of weaved through it. Quite a lot of it probably 50-80 little yellow dots(1mm) all in a single sack. And than there's like yellow brownish flecks and pieces of what look like clear egg sack all over my plant leaves. My plants are fake.
Well I don't know who laid them, could it have been my Plecos? My Plecos are almost a year old and 1 is 9" and the other 6", one is obviously smaller, are they male and female? Or one is it that the one is more aggressive and
gets all the food (which routinely happens, I put algae wafers in his\her little spot so he\she can eat)?
How do you tell the difference? Is that what their egg looks like and where they lay them? I also have a 4" Gourami, 1" orange tetra, 1" clown loach, a frog (who seems to be in the eggs a lot), 6" black ghost knife (he's my buddy now, I got him frozen bloodworms and feed them to him on the end of a skewer). I don't think anything else could have laid them. I plan on getting 2 fire green tetras in a week, I finally found a place that will BUY my Plecos. I'm quite happy, after I have been trying to give them away. What should I do with the eggs? I'm not really too concerned about propagating, but something small in my tank might serve as a nice snack for my black ghost knife. Or the frog. Or anything. What do you think? Again thank you for all your help in my beginning worries. And the rest of the WWM staff for the amazing website you guys keep up.
James
<First thought was snail eggs. Very common. They are laid in a jelly like mass. But on re-reading the part about "weaving though" the plant leaves I now think they may be frog eggs. I never kept frogs, but do recall that some species lay long strings of eggs in a protective jelly. Snail eggs would be in a single round clump. Either way I would remove them. If they're frog eggs they will be infertile without a male and will decay. If they're snail eggs you're looking at a population explosion. Your Gourami and tetra would both lay single eggs, not in a mass. I don't think Clown Loaches have ever been breed in captivity and would need to be much larger. (BTW, will grow slow, but can hit 8" to a foot. Be aware) Plecos are cave breeders. They would spawn in a protected area that the male would be defending. So that leaves the frog and snails. To sex your plecs look at the trailing edges of the fins and gill covers. Mature males will have frilly tassels decorating these areas. Also, when viewed from above the male will appear thinner and more tapered than the female. The larger fish may be getting mature enough to sex. At 6" the smaller is still to young. And another BTW, they may eat the ghost shrimp. Don>

Loricariid fry
Hi Bob, or whoever is in, <Don jumping at this one!>
My Ancistrus catfish are breeding all the time. Usually the male is looking after the fry for 1 to 3 weeks until they are all gone. Mostly probably eaten by the other inhabitants of the community tank (different rainbows and bitterling). Every here and than I will find a young one weeks later. About 5 months ago I disturbed him just shortly after the eggs hatched and I took them out to raise them in a little tank on my kitchen bench. By now they are developed into 2 different sizes: ~3cm and ~3.5cm. From the size difference and the behaviour I think the bigger ones are the males although I can't see the bristles jet. Am I right? I noticed that the female is already pregnant again even though the male just let go of the others. It is amazing, they are like a breeding machine and each time it seems there are more eggs. What would be the best time to remove the eggs/ fry to raise them in a different tank? I would like to give some of the off-spring to a friend.
<Wow, great timing on this one! My albino Bristlenose just spawned for the first time a few days ago. Still waiting for my first hatch. Mine are alone in a 10 gallon so no need to move. But in your case I would move them a day before they hatch. Let the father do his thing fanning them as long as possible. A day or two after they hatch would work, but do it before they leave the cave. Easier to move the eggs, IMO. Not sure if the size difference has to do with sex. Mine were pretty much all the same until they were twice as large as yours. Some may be feeding a little more aggressively than the others. The bristles will not appear until they are 6 to 8 months old. Hard to sex until then, but females may appear thicker when viewed from above>
As with the other inhabitants in the tank they are breeding as well. Well, they try. I notice the courting and sometimes I find all the fishies very busy in one small area and having, what looks like, a nice meal in between. I don't take them out to breed them, so I just enjoy watching their courtship.
Thanks for your help
Silvia
<That your fish are breeding this often is a sign of your fine care. It is no problem at all that the fish are eating the eggs. Very natural and healthy food. But I'd find it hard not to set up a breeder for the Rainbows. Don>

Ancistrus temminckii breeding
Dear Robert,
I would like to ask you some questions about Ancistrus temminckii and breeding.
How long do they need to be (inches/cm) before they can start breeding?
<Coincidentally have a friend in PA (Don) who breeds these regularly, including albino ones...>
Books say "a hollow in a piece of bogwood will be chosen as the spawning site." - I can't find a piece of wood that big, can I use a clay flower pot (upside-down) with a hole in it big enough for them to enter?
<Yes, this is what Don uses mostly...>
I guess the main question is: Do they need a 'cave' OR a 'hole' ;where a cave has one entrance and a hole has two?
<One is fine, two is okay>
If you could reply at your earliest convenience it would be appreciated.
Keith
<Glad to help... take a read through the "South American Suckermouth Catfishes" section on the www.WetWebMedia.com site yet? Bob Fenner>

Re: Ancistrus temminckii breeding
Dear Robert,
I have looked at WetWebMedia. What object should I use for the spawning site? -can't find large bogwood with hollow in it.
<Either a small diameter piece of PVC pipe or a clay type flower pot with a section broken on the lip for access placed upside down. Bob Fenner>
Thanks
Keith

Re: Ancistrus temminckii breeding
Sorry to bother you again but what if the pot is made of clay?
Should I leave only one entrance?
<Yes, this is fine. As long as there is enough room for the animals to turn around to make it in/out. Bob Fenner>
Thanks a lot for your help
Keith

Please HELP! Breeding, losing Plecos
Dear Robert,
my name is Dusan and I'm form Slovakia. I have just started breeding my Plecos and they spawned after a short time. I was quite happy to see the eggs in a tube.
<Yes, very exciting>
I replaced the whole tube with the male into a smaller tank filled with the same water of the big one. My first Plecos hatched and hung at the side of my tank and after 8 days I fed them first time. They grew up after 2 months to about 2 cm. Then they spawned again. I replaced the male and they hatched OK. So it went about 4 times. After hatching I waited 7 days after they absorb the yolk sack. I feed them cattle heart and spinach and they're (were) all crazy about it. But... My second fry suddenly started to die out! After they were all gone, my first fry also died! Now I have stopped feeding them the heart and replaced it with fish fillet. The third fry was OK for a short time, but now they started to die too! I'm so sad to watch them struggle for life.
And the way of dying is crazy. They swim around OK then they cannot stick to a wall (they slide down), after they seem to eat a bit and then I find them dead (w/ belly upward).
Water conditions: dGH 4-10 ´N, 24-25 ´C (78 ´F), pH 7, no plants, no roots, aeration & filtration YES
<Some friends who breed, raise Plecos (family Loricariidae) for sale use pelleted foods (mostly the formulated foods by Purina marketed as "Trout Chow") almost exclusively for very young (hatchlings) to a few months old... grading into par-boiled zucchini and other softened terrestrial greens.>
I guess you may know the answer. I would be very thankful if you would respond as soon as you can. Thank you very much.
Faithfully
Dusan Karac
<Am sending your note out to friends on the Net for their assistance as well. Be chatting. Bob Fenner>

Breeding Ancistrus sp.
hey Bob, Don from PA.
breeding Ancistrus sp. housing, abs tube black 6 to 8in long 1and 1/2 round block one end you have to will to anchor it down it dose not sink. feed ( zucchini raw )put a lead weight on it green beans ( French style)', shrimp pellets,. drift wood they chew on it. lots of water changes temp.74/76 I do not remove fry good parents.
I hope this helps
your friend
Don from pa.
<Thanks for this Don. Your vast experience does indeed "count". Thank you for sharing. Bob Fenner>

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