Baby Bn Plecos

[Gilli]

I've had my female Pleco for about 2 years since she was just a few centimetres long and about 6 months ago I saw a georgous large whiskery male - couldnt resist him and bought him. Since then they have had a batch of eggs which were laid in a crevice but my kribs and cardinals bullied him until they got them all.

I bought a set of 3 stacking caves and he took up residence in the bottom one along with my kribs and squeezed himslef into a recess. About 2 weeks ago when I was giving my tank its usual gravel vac and water change I tipped up the cave to hoover and lo and behold he had another clutch of eggs which he was well and truely hiding!

Today I did a water change and as I havent seen him for weeks decided to look to see if he was ok and lo and behold I saw babies! I can only see about 4 but there could be more and they are the size of small tadpoles and all darted back underneath him when they saw me.I am surprised they have survived as I expected my kribs to snatch up any that hatched!

So ive put a piece of courgette in there for them and im hopeing that they pull through. Do any of you have sucess stories of any surviving in a community tank?

 

[Gilli]

Update today - just seen half a dozen tiny ones zooming around the tank. They are so cute and I hope a few will survive!

 

[fishnovice]

depends what you have in community tank but should be OK with fairly peaceful fish. The person I got my baby BN from had about 60 BNfry and managed to raise most of them successfully in a community tank till they were 1 inch and big enough to sell.

 

[england]

i had a batch of 100 plus in with some guppys and eygiptian mouth brooders, they had alot survive, but i then removed all after there second batch to concentrate on bringing them up, which you need to keep up on waterchanges, they do seem to have a high death rate when at a very young age, but there great fun to watch looking after eggs and the little babies, its great, enjoy, i have one male left over from my batches, he hid when i emptied tank, lucky boy, been with me now i think two years..

 

[Gilli]

Managed to snap one today and put my finger there for scale......

 

[spectrum]

I think that they are very cute.

 

[VickiandKev]

If you have plenty of hiding places and if your tank is mature enough to provide algae snacks for these guys, then you may find a lot survive.

We had 3 batches in a community tank with gouramis, guppies, swordtails, black phantom tetra, small clown loaches and a synodontis eupterus and most survived ... it was only when we added the bigger clown loaches that numbers dropped

I have to say though, the high mortality rate is only in BN fry in community tanks, we now have a breeding setup and have lost only one BN fry out of 4 batches of 80 or so bristlies.

The water changes and correct feeding are what are most important.

 

[fuzzynicki]

I have a community tank with gourami, mollies and platys. I have a breeding pair of longfin bns plus a couple of clown plecs and an albino bn female. My bn's are constantly breeding and my male is left completely alone in his slate cave. No-one even attempts to bother him.

There are lots of caves, bogwood and dense vegetation in my aquarium so my babies seem to do very nicely.

 

[Gilli]

Do you have any problems getting people to take them off your hands?

 

[fuzzynicki]

I give mine away to one of my local fish shops. They aren't allowed to take in fish from the general public to sell on, but instead have a list of schools, colleges, hospitals etc that they pass unwanted fish on to.