L046 pleco setup
- Thread starter Niki_up
- Start date
3 weeks and one day old fry
might name this one beetle juice?
might name this one beetle juice?
So awesome Niki! Can you give a brief update on some of your stats?
Temp?
Are you using R/O water?
What are you feeding?
Thank you!
Temp?
Are you using R/O water?
What are you feeding?
Thank you!
So I tested the water in the beginning of setting up and my tank was always sitting at 0-5ppm of nitrates. I attributed this to the monstera and pothos growing out of the tank. I stopped testing my water a while ago as I was happy with my results and so I just ran all my available tests tonight for this thread.
water changes schedule before the eggs was 90% weekly. Water changes since I’ve discovered the eggs/fry has been 50% weekly. My nitrates were super high tonight for some reason, 40ppm ?I was super surprised! The last water change was Friday 50%.
on with the rest of the results and information
tank: 20g long
Stock: 3ish could be 4 adult zebra plecos 2-3 juvie zebras. Assassin snails, shrimp, and bn pleco fry, and a crap ton of pest snails.
as soon as the bn pleco fry sell no more will be raised in this tank. It was a temporary raining place until the zebras started breeding.
ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 40
PH: 8
GH: 9 or 180ppm whichever measurement you prefer to use
KH: 8.5/9 or 85/90 ppm
Temp: 84 to 86, new water temp used during water change is between 80/81.
No RO water is used, sometimes IAL are placed in the water
I do not have the TDS reading that everyone seems to be interested in when breeding zebra plecos.
for food they get fed a staple of the tropica soft food line with garlic added, zucchini for the bn, never seen the zebras eat it but that doesn’t mean they dont at night, and NLS algae 1mm pellets.
so really I’ve got nothing special going on over here, no tricks, and no secrets. The only thing I got going for me is luck.
I thought zebra plecos would need fresh or frozen invertebrates (eg: bloodworms, brine shrimp, mysis, etc)?
That is what I have read as well.
the soft line of food is fantastic though. I hav heard of babies and juvies chockingon fresh and frozen where as the soft line is high protein but breaks apart easily to prevent chocking. Def worth a shot if you want to try something different
Thank you, hopefully my luck will increase people’s interest and increase their breeding efforts
They seem to be doing well. I would offer a couple of thoights.
1 dg of GH or KH = approximately 17.8 ppm
Baby zebras need veggies in their diet more than they will when they get older.
A great food for both the adults and the offspring of any size are some of the Repashy gel Mixes. I use three for all my Hypancisturs. Bottom Scratcher. Spawn & Grow and Soilent Green. I mix the latter with the other two such that there is about 20% Soilent Green. The Spawn & Grow is great for conitioning for spawning and for fry growth. However, it is a high fat food and should not be used as the basic diet. The Bottom Scratcher is fine for regular feeding. I also have frozen cyclops, rotifer and BBS I feed for the smallest fry. Bigger zebras get frozen blood worms, brine shrimp and mysis shrimp.
I use TDS as this one measurement covers everything in the water. To stimulate spawning by doing a dry and rainy season the TDS should be 1/2 after the onset of the rainy as theywere at the peak of the dry.
Finally, the one thing to avoid with zebra fry is elevated nitrate.
1 dg of GH or KH = approximately 17.8 ppm
Baby zebras need veggies in their diet more than they will when they get older.
A great food for both the adults and the offspring of any size are some of the Repashy gel Mixes. I use three for all my Hypancisturs. Bottom Scratcher. Spawn & Grow and Soilent Green. I mix the latter with the other two such that there is about 20% Soilent Green. The Spawn & Grow is great for conitioning for spawning and for fry growth. However, it is a high fat food and should not be used as the basic diet. The Bottom Scratcher is fine for regular feeding. I also have frozen cyclops, rotifer and BBS I feed for the smallest fry. Bigger zebras get frozen blood worms, brine shrimp and mysis shrimp.
I use TDS as this one measurement covers everything in the water. To stimulate spawning by doing a dry and rainy season the TDS should be 1/2 after the onset of the rainy as theywere at the peak of the dry.
Finally, the one thing to avoid with zebra fry is elevated nitrate.
