Am I disturbing my king tigers???

I’m not specifically trying to breed them, ( Ok, yes I am, with the limited amount of time I have ) but I have 4-5 in a tank, and one actual cave… a couple of them have adopted the cave, being in a deeper tank, and a cave on the bottom, I’ve positioned it to be able to see into it, but it’s too dark to see much, so I have to use a flashlight to really see into it… if I were inspecting for eggs or fry… I only do this every couple weeks, but they get irritated, when I do… could I be disrupting them from spawning, by shining a light in every couple weeks, for a few seconds, or am I supposed to just be surprised, when / if it happens???

There are other spots, another under and on top of this piece of driftwood

Are these L333 ?

When you use the flashlight, open it pointing down completely an slowly bring the edge of the beam toward where you wan to look in the cave try to get some subtle illumination just enough to see.

Don't beam directly in the cave, wait a little and bring the light slowly up and you will be able to illuminate to whole place without startling them.

If you see them getting uncomfortable, slowly lower the light the same way avoiding sudden intensity changes.

Some of these cats can take up to 2 years before maturity. And can have a lot of difficulty to spawn in a community tank.

Thanks... I mostly use my Cell phone, because it's right there, but it's pretty bright, and there is no focus of the beam... I maybe should round up an old single cell incandescent flash light to keep by this tank...

yes, all are L-333's bought at a couple different times, so, maybe not litter mates, and all have been here probably a little over a year... I added that cave maybe 6 months ago... it might be a little big, but the Anubis rhizomes are stuffed into the holes in the center, pretty thickly, basically dividing the cave in half, as the roots basically close across the middle, I don't think the fish can swim from one side to the other, without going outside... so they had a choice of which side... they chose the side with less activity in the room, and less room light

the little cave on the top, was made by the fish, they actually chewed that one out of a small groove in the wood

The conjecture is looking good for having a surprise coming

How big are they ?

I would expect that they need to be at least 3" minimum to be considered young adults.

they range in size between them all from 2" to 4"

the 2 at the cave mouth picture are 3" and 4" the one hanging outside the cave mouth is the 3" one, & the bigger one is actually in the cave

You need more caves for one. They need to be spread out some. I used a variety of sizes/shapes in the breeding tanks. I have no clue which location and shape/size cave the fish will decide is the best one for spawning. What I do know is that the alpha male will end up claiming it. So my method is to provide the options and to let the fish make the choice.

Also, since 2006 I have had well over 1,000 Hypancistrus be born in my tanks including zebra, contradens, L173, L236 and L450. I had limited success with P. compta and got way too many assorted tank strain BN before I got rid of them all. I regularly flashlight the caves and have since day one. On goes the light and them I shine it directly into the cave. I have never had any issues from dong this. No dad ate or booted the eggs or wigglers. In fact the worst reaction they have is to cover up the eggs/wigglers to make it difficult for me to see them.

I am pretty good at knowing there is a spawn just by how a potential dad is acting, but I need to confirm it. So, I flashlight the cave. As always, this is just how I do things and plenty of folks share MaloK's opinion.

Agree,

In my experience, if you use a flashlight on regular basis to verify things in your tank.

The fishes gets use to it, quite fast and at some point it doesn't disturb them at all.

I'm really a bad "fish poppa" as this became an African Bio, & I couldn't catch these plecos out, without a complete disassembly of the scape, this is my hardest tank to work on, as it's viewed from 3 sides, & built in, so I only have above a narrow side to work on the tank, that and this is a 2 foot deep tank, & it's 4 feet off the floor, as there is another tank below it ... so I plopped a cave in... if I get some action, it will be worth, catching them out, after I retire, in a year, at which point, I'll start the 2 - 30 gallon tanks also built in, under my 2 - 45 gallon tanks, that are currently empty, as breeder tanks...