For Those Who Breed Bristlies ....

[VickiandKev]

My partner and I are looking into buying a lot of tanks and shelving to set up a 'fish corner' type thing as we may not have enough space (or permission from landlord) to set up a fish room to breed bristlenoses.

I wanted to know what the most ideal size of tank is for a breeding pair of common bristlenose?
And what the min. size is too as we're obviously looking to save space.
We also plan to breed gold marble bristlies and starlight bristlies, obviously gold marble stay smallish and starlights get bigger than common bns - should I adjust tank size for the pir to reflect this?

Also, what is the best kind of setup for each pair?
I was thinking, a small piece of bogwood (for rasping), a silver sand substrate and a slate cave per tank - would this be okay?
Perhaps a cabomba in each tank also, I'm not sure yet.

And what is the best setup for growing out tanks?
Obviously I should be keeping batches separated by age and species, so I might have need of 8+ growing out tanks?
But surely I can get smaller for the younger batches and then move them on into bigger as they grow and then bigger again and then hopefully they'll be 1+ inch or more and ready to sell.


Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as we'd really like to get going on purchasing some tanks as we see them come up.

 

[MOW4T]

My breeding tank is a 55L although my Bn's are both approx only 3.5" fully grown, i have a fake root ornament that they do their buisness in and playpit sand a couple of fake plants and some lava rock, a couple of days before they are due to hatch i move them into a 28L i find bare bottom a lot better as you can see what food is or is not being eaten, the only problem i find with a tank that small is that daily vacuums are a must as they are very sensitive to any changes or the slightest poor quality of water. i only have one breeding pair so i get away with just the 2 tanks, and timescale works out alright as once the next batch of eggs are laid the previous batch are of a sellable size.

 

[digdog]

I dont breed mine on purpose but have a pair in my 300 litre community tank. They also do their stuff in a fake mangrove root. They seem to breed like rabbits and i always have babies on the go, i dont move them on or anything, i just let nature take its course. When they get to about between half in and an inch i just fish them out. The problem is moving them on, my local shop will only take them if i give them to them so i have to take them about 20 miles to a shop which will swap them for fish or food. He seems to allow me about a pound a baby, so make sure you have a market for them 1st.

 

[spouz123]

if i was to breed bristols would i have to put the babys in a different tank

 

[roadmaster]

I have a breeding pair of long finned albino Bristlenose that are in 75 gal tank with Malyasian driftwood, river stones,fine gravel, and some pvc pipe attached to slate with silicone. Tank is filtered with two Emperor 400's and one HydroIV sponge filter.
The bristlenose fry presently number around forty and are keeping me busy supplying vegetable matter,spirulina pellets,spirulina based brine shrimp,omega veggie flakes,frozen blood worms(shaved off into smaller portions) and Ocean nutrition's omni formula.
The Bristlenose thus far have refused to use the pvc pipe and the female deposits the orange eggs under a large piece of driftwood. I have left the fry in the tank which also holds some glowlight tetras,and some long finned Blue Danios. Temp is a little warmer than the danios might like at 78 degrees F but the brislenose have had two cluthches of eggs in the last month and the fry are growing albeit slowly.

 

[EllieW]

I have a 180 litre tank and a fake root which my male bn guards the eggs in. When they babies appear in the tank I leave them for a couple of weeks before moving them to a different tank of their own.
Its almost impossible to keep the babies in a community tank when you need to clean with a gravel vac.

One thing to consider is once they start spawning they dont stop, I have had around 5 batches (each batch around 50 - 70 babies) in a few months and it could quite easily get out of hand.

Its really cool watching them grow up though and im always sad when they go to the lfs once they are big enough

 

[VickiandKev]

Thanks guys for all your input, I have people absolutely fighting over the young bristlies as there are a lot of aquatic shops round here and virtually no bristlies at all in them (?) so too much young is not going to be a problem. I've had about 4 shopkeepers saying they have other stores and will take 100 odd off me, give me a good price, and stock all of their stores.

My new setup has been up and running a few weeks now, added mature media to the tanks that are going to be inhabited and all stats are good. Moved my long term resident bristlies into their tanks just two days ago and woke up this morning to find that my common trio have spawned (YAY!) - and Mr Bristlie is currently busy in his cave, fanning his eggs bless him.

I'm really super excited - I expected them to have a settling in period first and expected first batches to be in a few weeks' time so haven't even done cool water changes/temp changes to induce the spawning.

Just waiting for Mr Longfin to spawn with Mrs Albino but she may be a dud - never seen her spawn before and the female who was mother to the last few longfin batches just spawned with Mr common as she's common too.

I never thought I would get this excited about it lol! I'm such a saddo sometimes hehe.