Breeding project well underway.

[somthinsfishy]

Well as some of you may know I'm trying to breed a number of plecs. For the most part I'm just trying a few things to induce spawning, given what I've read on breeding. I have a 125 gal. pleco tank with a mix of different pleco pairs trios ect. For the first part of the test. I tried doing daily 30% water changes with just tap water slightly cooler than the tank. Had no luck in doing this. Only thing I noticed was that the plecos grew a ton. Now I have moved onto the second test. After reading several articles I've to decided to try and lower the General Hardness or GH of the tank. Using water that ran from my water softner I've dropped my tanks GH from 100-200 ppm to 50-100 ppm. The ph is at a steady 7.2. I've moved my power heads. Now have both on one side of the tank. One pushed 160 GPH and the other 400 GPH. I'notice increased cave activity, also my whiptails are acting a littile strange. I'm going to continue using soft water for the next week. Doing a 30% water change every other day. If the soft water doesn't work then I'm going to try using RO water. And if I still get nothing I'll break the species down into individual tanks, and try to give them their individual paramaters for breeding, instead of try to breed them all in one tank. As far as the species I'm trying to breed, here is the list.
L018 gold nug. Need info on what size they begin to breed.
L190 panque going to be tough because can't find any breeding info, but I'm determined to get them to do so.
L134 shoulden't be to hard, need to know what size they begin to breed at.
L204 Flash.
L104 clown.
L136 hypan.
L010 whiptail.
Some ottos.
L264 sultan.
Also some various bushy nose albino and non.

I'll let everyon know how it goes, and try to keep this thread updated.

 

[WyldFya]

A lot of those speceis are larger fish, that take some considerable size to begin breeding. The thing you need to be trying for plecos isn't water changes, it is temp changes. This is a replication of the dry season, and the rainy season.

 

[somthinsfishy]

Yes I'm doing that just didn't mention it. They already went through dry season conditions. Now when I do water changes I use water colder than the tank. Then let the tank come back up to temp then water change again. Increasing the flow, just like the flow of the river increasing when it rains. Also the only ones that are a larger species are the L190 and gold nugget. Everything else stays around the 3"-7" mark. I read somewhere that most plecos can begin to breed at one third their adult size. I just can't remember where I read it. I believe it was on shanes world on planet catfish breeding L134's.

 

[WyldFya]

Yeah most stay into the 3-7" mark, but the smaller plecos tend to be about 3/4 - full grown before breeding can begin to happen. I've never heard 1/3 full grown size for breeding, but 2/3 in many species is where they will begin to breed.

 

[davo]

i think a third is much to small. its more like 2 thirds of a plecos adult size they start breeding. logically it is more probable too. If you cannot find many info on GN's look objectively for other baryancistrus sp.

The most important variables are undoubtedly:
water current
temperature
spawning site
water quality

they will all change in the season particularly the first 3 for obvious reasons

im glad everything is showing promise at the moment and its a good sign you have noticed an increase in activity, health and growth. im pretty sure you will find some species a breeze.

i dont think there is a pleco that you cannot captive breed. just how much you want to do it.