Bristlenose Questions

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T

Tropicalfishking

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 24, 2009
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Seattle WA
I have 2 bristlenose plecos in my tank and I just added 2 more. A little while after adding them 2 of them started what seems like fighting.
Is this alright? Should I remove one of them?

They have now stopped and it seems like the bigger of the 2, the one with the wider head won. The loser is now hiding on the other side of my 75 gallon tank. Should I be worried or is this a one time thing for assurting dominance?

Also is there a chance they the 4 bristlenose plecos in my tank will breed? The two fighting had the same patterning on them but the other two are lighter in color and seem to have smaller bristles?
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males fight and are very territorial,i would remove the loser(which is probabbly a male)and leave the other two with the smaller bristles,and see what happens from there.
 
Ok, did that.

There are lots of caves and such in the tank. What are good things to feed them. Right now I have zucchini, peas and green beans in there and I'm trying a nectarine (?).
 
I have NO idea what the male to female ration is. I don't know who to tell them apart, so yeah... all of them have "bristles" on there noses but none of them run up from the nose towards there eyes. I have only had them 6-7 months, I think.

How old are they when they sexually mature??
 
The bushy nose pleco (Ancistrus sp.) by Gary Lange.



Non of my Bushy nose plecos have this amount of bristles. I have had them for about 6-7 months.

all of the bristle are around the "Sucker" area and non of them have any that are growing up towards the eyes.

I am working on feeding them a bigger range of foods (Zucchini, butternut squash, cucumber, beans, algea waffers, etc...) But they don't seem to be getting the fact that these are good sources of foods yet. But I read somewhere that it takes a little while for them to realize this.

Is it just that the males aren't mature enough to have these bristles like in the picture?? Or are all 4 of my bushynose plecos female....????
 
Tropicalfishking;4408281; said:
Bump!
Click to expand...

Some species just seem not to grow quite as much inn the way of bristles but the males normally mature with bigger one, it is hard to tell when they will be mature as we do not know how old they were when you got them.

One thing that is important is to Blanche the foods in boiling water to break down the cellulose that above ground plants use to stand up straight, below water plants that ancistrus are designed to eat do not need cellulose and therefore the catfish have not developed to digest this in the food.

Cucumber seems to be a favourite, mine come out for sinking pellets too.
 
Finally, thanks for replying!! They haven't changed much, none of them have that classic bristlenose look like in the picture. just bristles around the edges.

I will remember to blanch the foods next time i feed them cucumber.
 
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