Eggs / Baby Pleco Advice Please

[DukeT]

Hi,

I added a couple of new fish to my tank today (Bolivian Rams) and whilst moving the decorations around I found a pile of yellow / orange eggs under some of my driftwood. I have 2 Butterfly Pleco's along with an assortment of Tetras, Oto's and some White Mountain Minnows, so I can only presume they are from the Pleco's. Needless to say, as soon as I saw the eggs (and one of the Pleco's refusing to let go of the wood) I put it back in the tank, as close to where it was as possible.

My question is, what do I do next? I am told they hatch after about 3-4 days. Can I use the separator net that I used to used for Liverbearers to keep the little ones safe, as I doubt they will be okay in the main tank (especially after the new additions). I bought both Pleco's quite small, before I knew which sex they were and I heard they were hard to breed, so the last thing I expected was eggs.

Thanks in advance for any help and replies.

 

[toddnbecka]

You can simply move the eggs into a net breeder, as long as there's a decent water flow around them they'll hatch. Normally the male will tend the eggs and fry until they've absorbed the yolk sacs. The tetras and white clouds aren't likely to bother the new fry, but cichlids will happily eat them. I just finished cleaning a tank full of BN and L-134's, netted out the brown BN fry and dropped them into a tank full of cichlids to snack on. The albino and calico fry I'll keep and grow out, but I already have too many browns on hand to grow out any more of those.