Breeding bristlenose plecos

[Oxquo]

Sorry, what I meant was to try and get a few late night feedings in as well. Although a lot of plecos come out and feed during the day, they still eat at night furiously, whereas during the day it's more of an opportunity thing and not an actual hunt for food. Mysis is a good conditioner but slow on it when you are getting close to spawn. Plecos are dirty enough no need to add excess fats and protiens to a tank of 40 or more plecos when the fry come. As for the wafers, they are great but remember to add lots of veggies as overnight feeding blocks. For best results, go down to DAD's and pick up some sera viformo even your fry will be able to munch on this stuff, in the catfish hobby, I have never seen a better food although it is not very widespread. To be honest I am not really big on their flakes either but Viformo for cats and sera fry powder for fry is the best Ive seen on the market today.

So atleast 1 time a night during conditioning add a veggie, switching up between spinach and zucchini will do well, a well rinsed canned green bean during the evening and say a wafer or tablet in the morning. That would consist of atleast 3 steady feedings per day, remember to remove the first veggie before adding a new one. That along with a good log to gnaw on and a coconut cave to spawn in, all you will need to do from that point is a good cool water change, in my preference 10% cold snow. Some have said that the addition of a powerhead with the cold water change works well too although I have only used that for harder to spawn cories. It is suppose to resemble the cold water from the rainy season rushing down the river on them which is what normally generates a spawning time in nature. In that case, if you have a lot of time and all else fails, resort to the Kirschbaum method. As I mentioned above once they begin they won't be hard to trigger after, it's getting the initial spawn that is the hard part.

In case you aren't familiar with Kirschbaum's method, it involves creating a mini rainy season. In this case you would lower the tank halfway, get a bucket around 1 gallon and daily fill it with cold soft acidic water or snow as I use. punch a hole in the bucket or two and hang the bucket 1-2' above the water so the rain actually pounds the surface. This can be messy so a splash guard will be helpful, turning your heater off or setting it on a timer is the best way so that the water actually cools for an hour to two before warming up again to 78F. If using Kirschbaums method It should take longer with snow then with rainwater or premaid water such as blackwater extract mixed with soft and acidic water, blackwater extract can also be substituted with peat filtering but with slower effects as you know. I like the blackwater addition as it makes the environment change even in the color of the water. So now the fish are getting cold, soft, acidic and dark water, adding on the extra feedings and maybe an adjustment of higher current I would say you have just brought the rainforest home.

[Vallisneria]

in my preference 10% cold snow

this will be a bit hard to get now that all the snow is gone Would cold RO water work the same?

Well i made some coconut caves yesterday. I added one to my males tank and he swam right in and hasn't left since. I also set up my 15g. I made 3 different types of caves. One side there is a coconut caves and some rocks. The middle there is a piece of driftwood and under it is a pvc pipe cave. and on the left i put a piece of PVC and piled rocks on top of it. There is also some crypts in behide everything. I thought they might lke to be able to choose what kind of cave they want. PLus this way there is lots of hiding spots of the female.

Tonight i plan to catch my female from the main tank(this should be fun ) and put her in the 15g to get her used to it and conditioned. How long does conditioning usually take?How will i know when she is ready? Then i'll add the male.

[Oxquo]

The tank sounds perfect, as for the snow? I have tried RO and even rain water, My guess is that it is the sulfuric acid in the snow that gets them, Rain water works just chill it a bunch before adding it. RO is usually non-buffered and always reads bad readings, Biggest problem is that there is no substance to it. There are still many minerals in snow and rain and the pH is around 4.5 at times in Alberta, out here it comes in at about 6.0 but has the same effect. If you choose RO maybe try adding an acid buffer to drop it a bit. In their natural habitat, when the rain season comes the water values go wild. This is what brings on spawn, it even worked on the discus. temps from 82 down to 68 in hours, pH from 6.8 to 5.5 hardness from 60ppm to 5 in a span of 48 hours, few south americans can resist spawning. Just ask Henry at DAD's about the value of snow and rain. At any rate. Introduce your male to the tank first, likely he is ready anyways, the female if she has been eating well and not competing for food too hard may be ready as well, only a swollen belly against the glass will let you know for sure. Feed, feed and feed some more if not. As I mentioned earlier, keep the middle water clean, don't over clean the bottom, you will have a hard enough time finding fry food once they hatch, few people I know could ever have enough algae. Some have suggested that in the same manner as breeding danios leave the tank by a window or outside till good and green before breeding as this gives both the parents and the fry to come a tonne of great steady food.

Allowing your male a little time to ready a nest first is a good idea as it is him who will invite the female in for a short stay. When I got my first pair of ancistrus I traded a girl from ACE for Micro synodontis, She didn't like the plecos anymore and said that they hated her tank and hid out in the same cave all day, I said"same cave, I'll take them. It was that night I gave them a snow dose and the next day she was clinging to the far end of the tank wanting out. Anyways If feeding your female up in the community is too much work, rest assured that the male and female can co-habitate for the duration up until the eggs are finished being laid. She will have a hard time keeping out of his sight after that but you can condition the two in the same tank if needed.

I have been experimenting with sulfuric acid lately on fish, and although it's a little scary, I think already I am on to something big. For now though, maybe try something like an RO with discus trace in it maybe even discus buffer. It's the acidity you really want on the first spawn. Once they do spawn though, it will take no more than feeding and a water change to get them to go after that, the first time is the hardest. Good luck and do some pics of your set-up if you can, it sounds just right.

[RD.]

Val - take this for what it's worth, you don't need to spend any extra money on sera viformo, the NLS tabs are the best there is, and will provide plenty of nutrients to condition your ancistrus. I know people who never once saw their Synodontis multipunctatus come out to feed in the daylight, until they tried NLS.

Here's a recent comment from a guy who's the aquarist at the Wildlife World Zoo in Phoenix AZ.

Myself, I use NLS. On all of my tanks, cichlid and otherwise. I started feeding NLS at the aquarium I work at six months ago; since then, the discus pair have spawned, the frontosa have spawned, and the blind cave tetras, which are usually an of-white, now have a glowing sheen to their side, and orange-ish tails. At home, my corydoras are spawning like no tomorrow; my golden wonder killifish are bright yellow and have also spawned, and NLS is the ONLY food (including live) that I have tossed into my tanks, and seen my spotted raphael catfish dive out of the tank to devour.

Now at work, I'm using NLS to "stuff" the food of fish who ignore pellets. The electric eel, the lungfish, the morays all get krill and silversides soaked in vitamins--now the food is also stuffed with NLS pellets. My latest idea is to somehow get NLS marine formula stuffed into tiny krill bits for our juvie frogfish.

No offense Oxquo, and the rest of your advice was excellent.

[Oxquo]

Thanks RD, Sera Is a kick A food though in the cat department, I have never tried this other tab, I am guessing you sell it? I'll give it a try. I tried the new life spectrum due to the reviews on this board. My results were not as pleasing as other peoples but I always like to try things personally. And besides it wasn't a catfish tab. Much like Sera, I only like 3 of their products alot and Viformo is one of the ones I trust. As for my NLS discus food, it does get eaten in my frozen beef/liver mixture so all is not wasted. I will admit that it smelled great, but discus are just not your average ferocious eaters like oscars and africans. Thanks for the heads up though RD, I will order some tabs and give them my most honest review after using them. Maybe I'll split up my trios and use Sera in the other tank.

[RD.]

I understand what you're saying about Discus, and of course if the fish is used to a high protein/high fat diet, chances are a dry pellet is not going to be overly appealing. The trick with NLS is weaning the fish off of those diets, and or raising them exclusively on a dry pellet to begin with. Once any fish has been spoiled rotten, just like a kid with candy, it's not always easy to convert them to something that may not taste as good, but in the end is better for them.

Check the Discus in this thread out (warning for dial-up users) it's difficult to argue with results like that.

http://s6.invisionfree.com/AlbertaAquatica...?showtopic=1943

This is really no different than the thousands of people who rant & rave about how great their African cichlids look on certain high fat products, yet don't realize that 'inside' their fish are slowly dieing. I've been saying this for close to 2 years, long before I was selling NLS (which I just started doing very recently), yet most people refuse to face the facts. I just posted this info this morning:

Fish are creatures of habit, but they are also very low on the intelligence scale, and once they get hungry enough they will eat damn near anything. The trick is finding something that they can eat as a regular staple, and that they will thrive on.

Fish people are funny, they like to constantly tinker & mess with things, yet I don't know a single dog breeder that feeds their dog a "wide variety" of commercial feeds (or other foods) on a daily/weekly basis.

Ancistrus temmincki, as well as the African synodontis species, are classified as omnivores, so any commercial diet that uses a high quality protein & fat source will easily condition them for breeding. The problem with 'most' wafers that are designed for these fish, is they are full of cheap grains & fillers, such as corn and various other grain byproducts, , not high quality ingredients.

I've kept bushy plecos such as the Ancistrus temmincki and never once fed it anything. It survived off of the algae growing in my 55 gallon tank (there was plenty of algae!) and it grew like a weed. On the other hand, I doubt this female would have ever spawned on such a low grade diet.

NLS H2O Stable wafers are unique in that they have the same high quality ingredients found in the rest of the NLS formulas, with the main protein source being krill meal, and herring meal.

Main Ingredients: Krill, Herring, Algae Meal, Wheat Flour, Amino Acids, Spirulina, Alfalfa, Soybean Isolate, Fish Oil, Beta Carotene, Garlic, Vitamin A Acetate, D-Activated Animal- Sterol (D3), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin, Folic Acid, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine, Biotin.

Guaranteed Analysis: Protein 33% Min., Fat 5% Min., Fiber 5% Max., Ash 9% Max., Moisture 8% Max.

The 'algae meal' is made up from kelp, seaweed, and haematococcus pluvialis. (a micro-alage that contains a high percent of astaxanthin)

When you add in the amount of Spirulina and Alfalfa used in this wafer, it has more than enough 'greens' in it to satsify even the strictest of herbivores, yet the main protein source is a much higher quailty than any other product on the market.

I know Val already has some NLS wafers, so my comment was simply to save her some money. Trust me, her fish don't need any other form of commercial feed, they've already got the best. Considering her comment about how they are eating the H20 wafers, if all other breeding requirements are met, I suspect they'll be breeding soon enough.

Edited September 2, 2005 by RD.

[Vallisneria]

Thanks Neil, I was actually only going to feed the NLS waffers I"ve been experimenting with my recent fry, only feeding them NLS and so far its going great. So i wanted to see what happens if i only feed the BN NLS.

Oxquo- I'm going to be taking some pics of the tank. I'll post them soon.

SO its best to put the male in the tank before i put them female?Let him get settled and choose his cave. I"ll try that.

[Oxquo]

So are you saying that you can spawn anything on NLS alone without live and without a varying diet? I am not being critical, just asking if this is actually what the company is saying. I never read that part in my brochure when they approached our store to carry NLS. I just don't think any flake or pellet could replace fresh cold gammarus right out of the ice fishing hole or a handfull of whiteworms on cories or even red wigglers on south americans. It would seem natural for any company to make this claim but using it for maintenance seems like a good choice. How is the SA food? I just know that nothing beats liver and heart mixed with naturose and vitaboost flake for discus. I can almost watch mine grow. I'd love to see someone perfect a discus flake that they just hammer instead of spitting in and out until the filter disolves it. So far, Omega is the closest I have seen.

At any rate Degrassi, skipping out on the veggies would be likely a big mistake, especially since you are nearing the end of the easy to spawn season. That is if you meant feeding your plecos NLS alone. Plecos spawn best between december and march due to the extremely high pressure systems, a cool water change on one such stormy day can be a big factor in the harder to spawn cats as though the gravity just pushes the eggs out. Good luck on the spawn and can't wait to see your set-up, I am sure it's just right.

[RD.]

So are you saying that you can spawn anything on NLS alone without live and without a varying diet? I am not being critical, just asking if this is actually what the company is saying.I never read that part in my brochure when they approached our store to carry NLS.

I never said that. I suspect that you could, if all other conditions were favourable, but I also suspect you wouldn't be able to get them to spawn with the same type of frequency (at least with some species) or get the same size or quantity of eggs, as compared to supplementing with live foods. I also didn't suggest to Val that she should not feed veggies to her ancistrus. I wonder if you have NLS International confused with someone else? Are you saying Pablo approached your store in Sask about carrying his food? I find that rather interesting, I'll have to ask him when they started sending brochures out to small retail stores across Canada. Hmmmmm.

I just know that nothing beats liver and heart mixed with naturose and vitaboost flake for discus. I can almost watch mine grow. I'd love to see someone perfect a discus flake that they just hammer instead of spitting in and out until the filter disolves it. So far, Omega is the closest I have seen.

See the links above, the Discus photos, as well as the info on fatty liver disease associated with diets high in lipids.

From the SimplyDiscus site:

Re: 'New Life Spectrum' anybody?

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I have used the Growth formula and my fish love it, they start wriggling with excitement when they see me go for the jar. A little goes a long way, it is rather dense. I give the tank of 16 4 - 5" fish only about 1/4 teaspoon or less, 2 or 3 times a day. They do really well on it, I've stopped feeding all the frozen things, they don't even get BH all that often now.

I've been trying to get them onto the cichlid formula and they are reluctant to change. I've tried the parasite formula also and they don't care for it. I guess I'm going to have to buy more of the growth formula!

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No big surprise there, the Growth formula is 50% protein, and 9% fat, so of course those Discus would prefer those pellets over ones that contained 34% pro, and 5% fat. Like kids in a candy store .....

When it comes to breeding & raising fish, I guess it all boils doiwn to what one is wanting to achieve. To have fish breed very frequently, produce large spawns, and raise the fry to grow the largest in the least amount of time ...... no matter what the long term health consequences may be, or to have less frequent breedings, somewhat slower growth in your fry, but have fish that will outlive the ones that are pumped out on a regular & frequent basis.

Obviously if one is breeding fish as a business, most often they'll tend to go with the former, just as the large scale fish farms do. Large scale breeders in the aquaculture industry want the fish to breed often, and the fry to grow fast, period, no matter what affect it has on the fishes long term health.

As seen in the link I provided earlier in this thread, sometimes the results aren't exactly what they bargained for, and their operations suffer in their rush for success.

For myself, I don't want females that are spent in 4 years, or juvies/adults who's livers are choked off by fatty acid deposits, which leads to their lives being shortened significantly. Then again, I don't breed fish as a business.

Edited March 14, 2005 by RD.

[Vallisneria]

At any rate Degrassi, skipping out on the veggies would be likely a big mistake

I guess what i should have said was, the only "prepared" food i'll be feeding will be NLS. I"ll still be giving veggies. But instead of feeding a variety of prepared foods(algae tabs, frozen foods etc.) I'll only be using NLS products.

[Oxquo]

Excellent, I very much doubted they'd ever spawn without rasping veggies, good luck.

[RD.]

FYI - I spoke with a local breeder who specializes in Tangs, but I noticed a couple weeks back that he had a swarm of BN pleco juvies. I asked him today if he used any special foods to get then to spawn, and this was his response:

Nothing special--just flake and whatever pellets I have around--nothing fresh but it surely wouldn't hurt-tried carrots but they never did eat them

BTW - he's been breeding fish (including Discus) for over 30 years, and currently has approx 2000 gallons worth of tanks.

Edited March 15, 2005 by RD.

[Oxquo]

Is that how your's spawned as well RD? Some spawn easy some spawn harder, fish can't read books. As for getting them into top condition and just great everyday care for plecos, veggies is a nice touch and a great overnight food. Granted my older bristlenose used to spawn without notice although this was after the initial spawn though they were eating beans everynight so I guess bad example, that one is normally harder. I am not saying it isn't possible to spawn fish just on dry food, veggies and live help alot though. This new life spectrum could be good food I will try another kind than the discus food. Point is, when I asked them about feeding and my discus refusing to eat it, they said I spoil my fish with live foods "grindals, mysis etc" and shouldn't be. This is BS, simply put. They were trying to pull a Hagen and get me to 100% stock just their food and tell people that frozen is not good feeding it actually disturbs the balance. Hmmm, I did tell them that my discus do eat their bits from Kensfish and they eat Omega one. They love frozen heart and liver with shrimp and fish so much none gets wasted.

But this is not a food advertisement here. It's a breeding column. I will still say, feed veggies if you want these......

[RD.]

I'm sorry, if I've somehow misled you into thinking I breed BN's, let me clear that up for you, I don't. My comment about the local breeder who does, was simply to prove a point. I'm not the only member of this site that's seen his set up, as well as his tank full of baby BN's, so take his results for what you will.

Pull a Hagen, LMAO, that's funny. I'm not going to get into a tit for tat with you over the benefits of using NLS over the other commercial foods currently on the market, use it, don't use it, I really don't care. I don't need to 'advertise' the benefits of NLS to Valerie, she's already been using NLS for a long time, and has seen the results first hand. Pablo has approx 800 fry tanks currently on the go, so I suspect he knows a thing or two about breeding.

I also never once suggested that Val should not feed veggies to her BN's.

Carry on .........

Edited March 15, 2005 by RD.

[Oxquo]

Like I said, I think it may be a good food, but it was them and not you who suggested that is all I need to feed my fish. Also that I should sell it to my customers that way. He told me that the discus food was very accepted and was a meal all in itself meaning no frozen foods or meats needed adding to the diet. Anyone knows that with fish variety is the spice of life, they are opportunity feeders by nature. I have even caught Northern Pike with nothing more than a belly full of snails, eaten by opportunity. My problem is that much like dealing with Hagen, their attitude is be all end all of foods. I have even still given them the benefit of the doubt and ordered the cichlid foods. I am very open to see the effects but too close minded to think one food is all fish need for anything more than sustaining a fish. Even dogs need a steady diet with a variety of treats to keep their diet healthy.

In any case RD I thought you were spawning catfish and were trying this method. I guess having to deal with pushy, overbearing sales reps who know little about the lives of the creatures they sell products for has made my arteries hard, sorry if I seemed to come on strong, I think in some way we are thinking along the same track. I just read into it as what the sales rep said" feed only NLS, nothing else". and , " Frozen and live foods spoil a fish until they reject real nutrition".

Once again I may have misunderstood and I apologise, Oh yeah, good luck with the pleco spawning degrassi. I hope to see baby photos soon. Let me also clear up that if your fish are eating the NLS wafers then use those, I only mention Sera as it has been a great tablet food when fish seem to suck up and spit out a majority of spirulina wafers.