bristlenose catfish

[juniorcat]

are they easy to breed? i looked at the 'fish index' for them and it said that they're relatively easy to breed, but when the person at the shop told me they're almost impossible to breed? and do they need wood in the tank??

also, they were labeled bristlenose catfish... but none of them have any bristles?? is it because they're too young?? i got three, and two of them are around 1.5 inches and the other 1 inch... thanks!!

 

[sharktale]

Hi, they are too young to tell if they're male or female at the mo. I have a breeding pair of golden bristlies who breed about every 6-7 weeks. I bought a barnicle type thing and put it in their tank, he went straight into it and only came out to eat, within a couple of weeks there was lots of eggs I have over 100 babies from the first lot. I put Dad and the barnicle into a little tank on his own (with the eggs!) and he was fanning away, after about 3-4 days they started to hatch. After a week of the babies being free swimming I put him back into my community tank, than a couple of weeks later, more eggs. He had found a nice spot in the leg of a tree trunk ornament thing and was fanning the eggs, unfortunately he shared the tree thing with my clowns and they ate quite a few eggs (I didn't know they ad spawned again) so I moved him in the tree thing to another tank and have saved 36 babies I just put him back in my community tank yesterday so no doubt they'll be more soon.
Males have lots of bristles on them and females may have a few or none at all. When they are older and you can sex them, if your male disappears for a few days he's probably looking after eggs.
My male is about 3-4 ins long and my female is about 5 ins long.
Good luck with them breeding.

 

[Nidge]

Most bristlenose show some amount of bristles at a young age but not all especially females.
All of what Sharktale said is true. If you want to increase your chances give them a cave and point a filter outlet at the cave this will encourage spawning as the fast flowing water creates a perfect place to lay eggs and to stop them from fungusing.

 

[smithrc]

We had a pair in a community tank - they started to breed and slowly but surely we are removing fish to make it as safe for the little ones as we can.

Ours breed every 3-4 weeks and have 30-40 fry!

to give them somewhere to spawn we have some 35mm PVC tubes in the tank, blocked at one end.

 

[juniorcat]

thanks for the info!! i put them in my larger community tank today and put one of those algae tablets that you stick to the glass in, but they dont' seem to be eating... all of my zebra fish's crowded around the tablet picking at it, but they just don't seem interested?? will they eat when i'm not looking?

 

[Nidge]

Why dont you try a little piece of cucumber, They love it.

 

[smithrc]

we find they feed loads better after lights out.

as nidge said - cucumber rocks

 

[yhbae]

From what I have seen so far, they eat cucumber, zuchini, stem of brocoli and bean jackets. I haven't tried romain lettuce but I'm sure they will eat this too...

 

[sharktale]

Mine love cucumber, she comes out all the time, he is a little more shy. I have put in lettuce which they like and I have put in a defrosted shelled pea. I haven't tried the stick on food as they are quite happy to eat the normal algae wafers.
Julie

 

[Angry_Platy]

I wouldn't stick the algae wafer on the glass.....makes it harder for the catfish to eat it...mine like to move it about to hide it from the other fish

To breed bnoses....my version

1. Buy male catfish...add to tank
2. Buy female bnose...add to tank
3. Watch male chase female around for few days
4. Think your male is dead as you never see him anymore
5. See little orange insect type things fly around your tank at lightning speed

As you can tell I didn't do anything....I was going to do the tube thing and the filter stream thing but never got to it....there was fry before I could be bothered doing it.....2 BATCHES....unfrotunately most of the second batch was eaten by a pair of greedy platy fry, one of whom died shortly after (gluttony )

 

[yhbae]

Hmm... So platies do eat their fry... How large are the fry when the male releases them? Mine gets released at quite mature time, and I don't think platy's mouth is large enough to eat them. Neverthless, I don't think I am going to risk it by introducing platy into the same tank...

 

[Angry_Platy]

My female laid her eggs in the middle of the tank....out in the open....my male looked after them and I could see him trying to push them to safety....but the platy fry must have eaten the eggs or the fry or something....the platy fry were old enough to know better but not fully grown....I read later that the yolk sac stuff is toxic to other fish aside from newly hatched bnose fry.....

He didn't release the first batch from the cave until they were about 4 weeks old....and even then it was because of my nosiness

 

[yhbae]

My female laid her eggs in the middle of the tank....out in the open....my male looked after them and I could see him trying to push them to safety....but the platy fry must have eaten the eggs or the fry or something....the platy fry were old enough to know better but not fully grown....I read later that the yolk sac stuff is toxic to other fish aside from newly hatched bnose fry.....

He didn't release the first batch from the cave until they were about 4 weeks old....and even then it was because of my nosiness

Hmm... I'm trying to figure out what other species I can introduce into the community tank without risking getting bristlenose fry eaten. Just got my 5th batch of fry now and the male consistently releases them when they are about 1cm long. Currently, I don't have any species in the tank that can eat 1cm fish, but the tank looks a bit boring without any center-piece fish. Blue rams and Platies used to play this role, but not anymore....

 

[smithrc]

our tetras are fry safe

as are our loaches

neither are egg safe however

 

[yhbae]

our tetras are fry safe

as are our loaches

neither are egg safe however

When you say loaches, are you referring to khuli or clown loaches? I'm surprised that clowns don't go after young bristlenose fry. I'm not concerned about them getting to the eggs as the cave is very narrow - no fish can get past the male when he is guarding...