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The Longfin
Green Dragon Bristlenose Plecostomus.
A male is on
the left, a female is on the right. |
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The bristlenose pleco can
be bred easily if a couple issues are addressed. If a few
aspects of their care aren’t done
to the fish’s
satisfaction then you will be as I was for over 2 years, where
nothing I did seemed to trigger a single
spawn. Today I have to
keep them separated as there are now many tanks of fry here with
regular, routine production.
So what made the
difference? Though you may get an occasional breeding in the
tank provided for your plecos, what is
described here should
guarantee consistent breeding of capable breeding pairs, with
maximum yield of fry that are raised
with few if any losses.
First off, we are talking
about the standard bristlenose pleco, Ancistrus sp., that attains a
maximum length of about 6 inches.
Developed in a wide
variety of color morphs, long fin varieties have come into the
hobby that are truly spectacular. Today
they are available as the
natural brown, as well as spotted, albino, calico, chocolate,
red, and white, many bred in both
short and long fin
varieties. The variety being referred in this article are the
longfin “Green Dragon” plecos.
Easy to sex, the males
develop facial growths – “bristles” that are actually soft
fleshy branched protuberances.
The females are slightly
smaller with less extensive finnage (but still with long, showy
dorsal and tail), and whose
abdomens can become quite
distended when filled with eggs. They need to age close to a
year before able to breed regularly,
and a single pair can be
very prolific, having 150 -200 eggs at a time.
The male will choose an
enclosed space to breed in (more on that in a moment), and when
a female is ready, she will be
lured into the cave. The male and she will twist about in the recesses of the
enclosure, where she will release the
adhesive eggs, and he
will fertilize them. The female is let go, often with a
collection of torn fins and a slimmed down
figure, indicating they
had just bred.
The male then guards the
eggs and fry until they leave the cave, after which only a few
will survive. The male when
guarding the eggs
generally doesn’t eat, and with some of the caves, the male is
able to form a seal around the eggs and
fry, so that they can’t
even be seen. You will need to remove the fry and raise them up
separately, and that will be
explained later in this
essay.
But first- how do you get them to breed?
A tank of at least 29
gallons should be used. Two breeding areas at opposite sides of
a 55 gallon is perfect. Full grown
pairs will reach 6
inches, and the adult males, particularly after assuming
ownership of “their” cave, can be fairly
territorial.
Most hobbyists set out to
breed fish that have grown out in their tanks, hearing of others
who one day simply looked
in to see pleco
fry. This leads one to think that if you wait for it, it will
happen. If you are like most people, your wait may
be awhile,
unless you make specific efforts to breed and save the fry of this fish.
First off, plecos are
catfish, and most catfish require good water quality and some
water movement to spawn. They are
also specific about the
structure they choose to breed in.
The Fish
You must obtain a
sexually mature pair, or better yet, a group, and allow the fish as they
grow out and mature to pair off
naturally. I have found
that plecos tend to pair bond, though switching a partner, by
removing one, could probably be
done if necessary.
It seems to take a while
before they become old enough to spawn- close to a year, and
determining when they have
reached sexual maturity
is not difficult. Males will grow soft, fleshy, permanent,
branching facial protuberances that
immediately identify them
distinct
from the females. As well, with the longfin varieties, the males
are also larger, with longer,
more extensive finnage.
Though a dusky green color most of the time, the males become
almost black when breeding, and
will maintain that darker
color while they are guarding the eggs.
The females are slightly
smaller, with a smooth face. As they become breeding age they
will become rounder as they fill
with eggs, giving the
impression they had swallowed a large marble.
The Pleco Cave
If they are not breeding
for you, you must satisfy variables that could lead to success..
I found it important to
invest in “real” ceramic
caves, as opposed to a simple piece of white or black PVC with a
cap at one end. Some feel
the surface is too slick
for the plecos, some claim it’s the color, and some claim to use
them routinely with success.
I know they will breed in
natural looking clay fired oval tubes, closed off at one end. Be
sure the cave you set out
will be snug for the pair
you have- They search out the tightest, most confining space for
the job. Today there are a
number of makers of pleco
caves on the internet that can be bought affordably.
Tank Size
The size tank is dictated
by the size of the fish you are working with and number of pairs
in the tank. Single pairs
will breed easily in a 29
tall with 4 to 5 inch fish. A few pairs here that approach or
exceed 6 inches are bred in
55 gallon tanks, 2 pairs
per tank, but a single pair would probably breed in a 30 if the
tank had few other inhabitants.
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The most
prolific 55 gallon tank for the plecos.
Today there are two young sexually mature pairs,
and two individuals that have not yet sexed out.
one of these pairs spawns regularly. Many
spawns have come from the cave on the far left
and the second one from the right. No males have
chosen the other two. Alfaro cultratus can be
seen swimming above. Notice that the caves are
bent or tilted so that eggs will not fall out. |
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Tank Setup
You want the fish to use
the cave and feel secure, but you still want to be able to watch
them closely so that you can
determine when any eggs
are laid, and when they will hatch. If you are planning to keep
more than one pair in a larger
tank, you might consider
dither fish that won’t bother the pleco eggs or young. Surface
feeders such as Alfaro cultratus
are an excellent choice.
The bottom should be bare bottom or with a minimal substrate as
they will be eating foods that
can foul the tank, and
could cause water quality issues that could discourage them from
breeding.
Our experience is that
the bristlenose plecos generally leave Java Fern, Java Moss and
bolbitis fern alone, so using
small groups of plants
for security and natural look works well.
Though many claim to
breed plecos at a wide variety of temperatures, I have found
that breeding them at 77-78 degrees
works best. Moderate to
normally bright lighting is fine for them.
As with many fish that
look to spawn in a safe environment where they hope to guard
their eggs, try to provide
opportunities for them to
feel secure. Here, we cover the tanks, keep the lighting at
moderate levels, and put in a
thin layer of gravel over
about half the tank bottom around the caves and separate from
the high activity areas where they
are fed. Moderate to
Heavy aeration is used with some water movement.
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Plecos need easily digestible,
highly nutritious vegetable food, and lots of it.
Feeding blanched zucchini
is essential to maintain them in good health, but if
you wish to trigger them
to breed, as well as to maintain them at their maximum
health, beans can't be
beat. The French Cut are necessary, particularly for
younger fish that have
difficulty getting past the skin of whole beans. Others
have reported good luck
using peas. But with any of these, extra filtration
becomes important to
maintain breeding levels of optimum water quality. |
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Feeding
When everything else is
in place, the proper foods to trigger them to spawn are often the
step that brings success.
The quickest and most
consistent results come from feeding canned French cut Green
beans, no salt if possible. The
French cut splays the
beans so the fish can eat them more easily. However, here we
must use the 6.5 lb. cans, and
regular beans are all
that is available. They work fine, but with new fry it is
necessary to cut them in half so
they can access the bean
to be eaten. In combination with the green beans, a broad higher
protein dry food can be
fed alternatively. Plecos
are big eaters, and when setting out to breed them, place green
beans in the tank first
thing in the morning, and
try to always keep some available to feed upon. You may find
that you will need to
replenish the beans once
or twice more over the course of the day.
Blanched zucchini is
excellent for maintaining them, but does not provide enough
nourishment if you are looking
to breed them. Others
have mentioned feeding green peas, but we have never used them
here.
Water Quality
This is one area that
alone will keep your plecos from spawning. They may live
comfortably in a tank for many
years with apparent
satisfaction, but if there are routine, chronic water quality
issues, breeding may not occur.
Many fish require water
of better quality to breed than what they normally thrive in.
Some may claim plecos breed
without concern for water
quality, but for breeding success, and certainly to accomplish
spawning if it has been
a problem, plecos must be
treated like any other catfish that requires optimum water
conditions.
This becomes a big
problem when you are putting at least a handful each day of
green beans into your tank! The
combination of the
mulching of the green beans done by the plecos as they eat them,
their waste, and the natural
tendency of green beans
to cloud the water, leads to immediate issues if
something isn’t done.
For this, on a 29 tall or
55 gallon tank, a 250 hang on the side canister filter is used
to boost the filtration and keep
the water from
becoming too ammonia rich. Heavy water changes also come into
play. Fortunately, young plecos
seem very tolerant of the
cloudy water that follows a bacterial bloom- though I rush to
address it when it occurs.
These canister filters –
when using their “micron sleeve” for maximum filtration, should
keep the tank fairly clean
and relatively mulm free.
It will need to be changed whenever it clogs up, and when
feeding beans to encourage a spawn,
the filter may need to be
changed daily. (The sleeves clean easily by soaking in water and
bleach, and two sleeves can
simply be rotated.
However, be careful to rinse the sleeves thoroughly- be sure to
sniff each sleeve before using it to
ensure there is no bleach
residue.)
Yet there is one more
solution to this problem. If you are using multiple tanks, I
have set up a sump system with a
pump that runs the water
through layers of foam and floss, in combination with the normal
tank filtration. However,
many 10s, 20s and 30s are
used to raise pleco fry that are not on a central sump, and with
the external canister filter,
normal box filtration and
regular water changes, the tanks do fine.
Triggers
When all of the factors mentioned are followed, if breeding is
problematic it is because they will breed too
frequently. Too often,
within days of removing a spawn from a cave, the male with have
another batch going.
Plecos are very prolific
in the wild as well, so when conditions are to their liking,
they will generally
breed. However, I have
found breeding to commence almost immediately if certain things
are done.
With a pair that had bred
previously, they were separated for a couple weeks, and then
when she was clearly
full of eggs they were
introduced in a breeding tank. He had taken ownership of a
specific cave and it was
moved with him when put
in the new tank. They were introduced in the afternoon, and he
was guarding eggs by
morning.
On more than one
occasion, tanks are cleaned and set up to breed pleco pairs, and
when doing so, 20-40% of
old water is used, the
rest is fresh. Often the abrupt water change will trigger them
to spawn, and there will
often be batches being
guarded as soon as the next morning after being moved to the new
tank.
After 5 years of breeding this fish, and logging in the spawns,
we are finding that this fish, at least here, is
breeding seasonally. An
occasional spawn may occur at other times of the year, but the
majority of the egg
production will happen
from about early-September to early February. With some pairs,
all efforts to get them
to breed seem to fail,
when waiting until their season comes around is what they are
waiting for. This could be the
case if the tank is
exposed to a window, and natural, seasonal light cycles.
The Breeding
So you have a pair in a
29 tall, 78 degree aquarium with some plants for cover, and good
aeration in a tank that
is essentially bare
bottom with a thin layer of gravel. Beans are fed throughout the
day with a good quality higher
protein dry food, and a
pair of adult plecos, with the female obviously round with eggs
swim beneath the stream of
water coming from the 250
HOT Magnum hang-on-the-side canister filter. A natural cave of
ceramic, rock, or fired
clay at least 5-6 inches
long is provided, large enough that the male can get in and out
fairly easily (and at some
point will have the
female in there with him), and the cave is placed so that you
can see into it (possibly with a
pen flashlight).
The male should take
ownership of the cave, or will choose one that he will call his
own, and he will lay for most
of the day at the cave
opening.
When the female decides
that she is ready to lay her eggs, she goes over to the male,
and before breeding they
will generally both be in
good shape. After breeding, they will have spent time rolling
around in the tube, and
will often show slight
abrasions and torn fins. The female may also appear to be
slimmed down. She may hang out
near the breeding cave,
but is otherwise no longer involved once the eggs are laid.
The male will become very
dark colored following breeding, and will stay slightly in from
the mouth of the cave actively
“fanning” the eggs- his fins
will shake consistently for hours to keep water flowing over the
eggs.
New, young males will
frequently need to learn to do this appropriately, and will
frequently knock eggs from the cave.
They do not put them
back, and you must remove them to hatch and raise them
separately, which will be gone into in
greater detail later in
this essay. If the eggs are not saved, the eggs or new fry will
likely not survive.
After 4-5 days, the eggs
will hatch, and the young will stay in the cave guarded by the
male, until their yolk sacs
are depleted – they will
then venture out looking for food. If you are going to save the
batch it is necessary to
remove the fry and raise
them up where they can be fed and monitored properly before this
happens. Occasionally,
after taking 3 or 4
batches of fry away from a male I will let him raise a batch up
himself, and rarely do more than
8 or 10 survive of a
batch of usually over 100 eggs.
This next fry sequence are all of the same batch.
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5 hours old. Immediately they
clump together for safety.
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Just hatched. Notice the whitish
structure the eggs were encased
in on the right. |
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The second day. each set of tiny
eyes and a tails
sits above the
round yolk sac. |
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Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5. Through this entire time,
they are not being fed
anything,
and provided with
aeration and
twice daily
water changes. |
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Day 6. At
this point feeding of frozen BBS
and ground cichlid pellets begin. A few
green beans are offered and changed daily.
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Day 7. They haven't suddenly become dark
it is simply the light, but their dark natural
color has begun to develop. |
Day
8. The lighting here begins to
show the differences in
shading
between individuals. |
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Day 9- The new pleco fry get their
own digs in a regular, filtered,
bare bottom tank. Mulm is kept
siphoned up about every other
day.
To the right is a line in
development, and if all goes well,
the first of this line to be sold
will be the young of this generation.
Not clear in this photo, the body
length of this fish is nearly half
tail! |
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Raising the Young
The best time to
“harvest” the young is within 2 days of when they hatch. If you
do manage to retrieve eggs – an orange
colored ball of large
eggs attached to one another- this is OK, they can be hatched in
the same way the fry are raised.
I take a plastic tub that
will float in the tank where the eggs were laid, the size tub of
about 10 x 12 inches and
around 4 inches deep.
This will be floated in the tank (so the temperature stays the
same, and multiple daily water
changes can be easily
done with water from the tank it is floating in.) Into this tub
is placed an airstone with a
moderate air flow. If you
are hatching eggs, you do not want the bubble stream to be so
strong as to disrupt the eggs-
just keep the air strong
enough that it keeps the water gently flowing around them.
Removing the fry / eggs
from the cave- This doesn’t make for the best day for the pleco,
and I would rather it were
a less disruptive
process. Take the tub to be floated in the breeding tank, and
put about 2-3 inches of water from
the tank into it. To
startle the pleco as little as possibly (causing him to possibly
scatter the eggs or fry from
the cave), I gently but
quickly move the cave with the eggs and male pleco in it into
the tub. The pleco will
generally spread out and
refuse to be dislodged from the cave. So with a rocking motion,
fill the cave with water
and rinse it out-
hopefully pulling eggs or fry with it. Keep doing this until you
have the amount of fry you want
to raise up. I will often
leave some of the spawn for the male to care for, or to come
back and retrieve later. The
cave and male are put
back in the same spot in the tank, and the tub is lowered into
the tank to float and raise the
young in until they are ready for a
tank of their own.
All of the young will
group together as they would against the wall of the cave for
the first 5-6 days. They are
absorbing their yolk sacs
and are not yet eating. However, they are respirating and
releasing wastes into the water
as at any other time, so
change about 50% of the water (with clean water from the tank
they are floating in) at
least twice a day. I keep
a small cup nearby, and can easily dip out and replace water as
I pass by.
Around days 5 and 6 they
will become old enough that they will cease to huddle together
in tight groups, and will
begin to explore,
searching for food. As soon as you see them beginning to
separate out around the container, feed
them baby brine shrimp.
Now, it is not enough to hatch the shrimp and feed it to them as
you would any other fish.
These baby plecos can
only eat what they can crawl over, so the BBS must be accessible
to them. After hatching,
rinse the BBS in a net
and mix back into a couple cups of aquarium water, then pour
into ice cube trays and freeze
them to be fed over the
next few days. The shrimp are then nearly as nutritious as when
live, and are eaten eagerly
by the new plecos. After
recently purchasing a coffee grinder, high quality cichlid
pellets are also ground up and
fed to the baby plecos.
They are fed twice a day with each feeding followed by at least
a 50% water change within an
hour or so, before the
deteriorating thawed BBS has an opportunity to cloud the water.
At this time it is also
best to introduce either French cut green beans or regular green
beans cut in half to get
them accustomed to
foraging on vegetable food. The quicker you can get them on
green beans, the quicker you
can put them into a tank
of their own without losses, as they will be accustomed to
eating food that will generally
be available. Depending on
the number of fry in the batch, size of container you are using,
etc., you will likely
want to get them into
their own tank with filtration in 7-10 days. You will know when
it is time when most are
eating the beans
routinely.
Unfortunately, the green
beans will cloud the water after a few hours. The cloudiness is
caused by a bacterial
bloom that occurs when
the bacteria feed on the deteriorating vegetable matter. Soon
the amount of oxygen used
and the waste produced by
the bacteria will overwhelm the container, killing the batch. So
all beans are removed
before nightfall and
replenished in the morning, followed by a water change, as long
as they are in the confined
tub. Each evening before
leaving them until morning the quality of the water is checked-
a problem is any sign
of cloudiness-, and a
quick water change will be done. The airstone should be going
24/7. At first you may want to
remove the airstone when
the fry are feeding on the brine shrimp or the ground food, to
be replaced once they finish
eating.
To reduce organic load as
the fish grow, cull as soon as you can see traits that are
undesireable. With the long
fin varieties, any short
finned fish are removed as soon as they can be identified.
They will consistently
with good feeding and clean water, reaching about 2 inches in
3-4 months, and sexing out
in 5-6 months.
Greg Sage
selectaquatics@gmail.com
copyright 2014
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