Wow, those are huge. I’ve been trying to get a trio but it seems all I can find are females, or what looks like females. Have never seen an L14 with that much odontode growth.
Have you successfully raised fry and how big are your breeders?
L14
- Thread starter Midwater
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Wow, those are huge. I’ve been trying to get a trio but it seems all I can find are females, or what looks like females. Have never seen an L14 with that much odontode growth.
Have you successfully raised fry and how big are your breeders?
I have successfully raised a small amount of fry from the first two batches. The challenge has been the male (first time breeder) and not fertilizing all the eggs and booting most of the good ones when trying to kick out the 'bad eggs' from the cave. A third spawn is looking likely shortly. I don't want to give too much away as I will write another published article on this when the time comes and I have the process dialed in a bit better.
To be honest sexing can be problematic. If you are sexing based on head shape (when viewed from above), then most fish you see are going to look female (not having the big angular/square heads) as only 'very mature' males exhibit this extreme sexually dimorphic difference.
In my group of 4 if i didn't know better and I was to sex based on head shape alone (when viewed from above), I would say the group consists of 1m 3f. One thing is for sure if the fish has a big square head then there is no chance of this fish being female. Unlike the odontodes where I have found even a proven female to be on the hairy side.
If i sexed on odontodes alone - I would say I have 4 males - all are 'hairy'. The fact I have had multiple spawns disputes this.
There is also head shape when viewed from the side, the female is much blunter/steeper than the male.
To be the fish in it entirety need to be considered.
My group (4 in total ranging from about 9-12" now) is 2m 1f and 1 unknown. The unknown is approximately 10" a size that you would think would be very straight forward to sex. This fish is 'hairy', with a head shape of a female but quarrels with the dominant male quite regularly. So I would say maybe 2m 2f but I wouldn't bet my house on it.
These are just my own observations and some people may have had different dealings with this L number.
That’s good info. I breed zebra plecos and have struggled with similar things. I’ve had hairy females and chubby males. Also, males will get way more odontodes during breeding season and drop them in between, making it hard to tell. I relied more on behavior as males tend to cave head in while females do so head out but even then, the alpha female would be quite aggressive and would cave head in as well so there is no exact science. I’ll be looking for extra L14 to give them a try.
Do you trigger them through environmental changes?
