celticfish's Hypancistrus zebra pleco (L046) thread 01 - Adam & Lilith

[celticfish]

Yipee!! My L046 have spawned!

The Spawn happened last week on 7th March.
I came home in the evening and saw a lone egg kicked out of the cave.
Then scooped it and place it in a floating breeder trap.
However this egg fungused on the third day.
It seems Alpha knows what he is doing...

The eggs became wrigglers on 12th March.
And I took this picture on the 15th March (at 8 days old).



I'm now counting down to 27th March when they will be free-swimming.

btw Beta has a female in his cave since the 8th March.
Yesterday night there were three fishes in his cave.
Man I wonder whats going on in there...
Hopefully he is not shooting blanks!

[blueblue]

congratulations!! ^.^
It's great to see a lot of lovely L46 babies are coming out soon. Do keep us up-to-date

[yorky]

Hi Irwin, cool rear picture.
Maybe you'll have double happiness soon!

[celticfish]

update-

early morning of 17th March (about 10 days old)


Night of 17th March
you can tell there is a big difference between the morning and evening photo.
seems this is a particularly fast development stage for the wrigglers.


Night of 18th March
shaping up better and look like blueblue's 10th march pictures.
you can see significant growth in bulk and length in the tail area.
the fry are also wondering to the top of the cave.
dad seems to stay a little further out to give them some space?





@blueblue
Thank you!

@yorky
got my fingers crossed.
but i dont think there will be much action till the fry and free swimming.


Beta male's royal rumble with two other fish ended with "no action".
at least two fish have gone in and out of his cave.
probably still trying to figure it all out...

[celticfish]

letting the male guard the spawn means getting pictures are hard...
anyways i seem to be able to see 11 fry.
so along with the unfertilized egg that got kicked out on day one the brood size is 12 eggs.
will try to get more pictures.
otherwise "D-day" should be sometime 27th March.
i really hope all the fry will be able to ween to solid food then... *fingers crossed*

[StanChung]

Lol! Like anxious father...

[Quixotic]

Any pictures of the entire tank itself? Curious about the tank setup. I assume it is a L46 only tank.

BTW, congrats.

[celticfish]

hi quixotic,

thanks for asking! just reminded me to post this write-up.
i've been doing this write-up on the tank setup in the background for a while now.
yes, its a L046 only tank with a bare bottom setup.
sorry this picture was taken in a big hurry you can see the reflection of my bed on the glass.



i'm afraid i've been doing all the "wrong" things for my L046!
i have them in a 5plan 2ft tank (just below 60 liters).
the L046 are of two sizes - one about 1.5" (6pcs) and the other about 2.5" (7pcs).
they were all purchased sometime september of 2006.
i did so as i was having home renovation and thought i may not be able to get them for a while.
so i took the risk and just wanted to keep them alive till a 3ft tank was ready for them.
since the spawn i have removed the 6 smaller fella to the 3ft tank.
i didn't want to upset the spawners.
the 3ft will be the grow out tank i suppose.
and if i'm really lucky i might get to use the 4ft planted tank for grow out! hahaha


before i got my caves it was just small peices of driftwood.
needless to say the smaller buggers were not having a good time.
at sometime early november i got my caves and they were a lot better off.
i put three in the tank and took out some DW for cleaning convenience.
strangely enough they didn't take to the caves immediately.
and some of the (now) suspect female were hanging out in them.
alpha male took position in the middle cave and stayed there consistently though.
vegetation was a single pot of bacopa caroliniana.
i think this is a nice stem plant to have as it serves two purpose.
it gets rid of some waste, provides shade and a snack for the smaller ones.
you can see the holes they leave behind after their snack.
i will try to get a closeup of snacking evidence.


Filtration
filtration is provided by Eden 501 x 1pc (w/ spong pre-filter), and a Eden 316 x 1pc.
weekly - clean pre-filter sponge on Eden 501 and change all media in Eden 316.
additional aeration provided by a Rena 100 airpump with an airstone.
this has been upgraded to a Rena 400 to also power the breeding tank for the fry (i know its an overkill).


Water Matters
temparature was keep at about 29 to 30 degrees celsius.
water change was done twice between mondays to fridays.
and daily on saturday and sunday.
amount changed about 25 to 30%.
sometimes twice a day on the weekends.
this is to compensate for the overcrowding.
anti-chlorine is used with a dash of sera aquatan.


Feeding
at first twice a day.
very lightly in the morning.
and the main meal at night.
food consist of a mix on my mood.
menu list - frozen blood worms, tetra bits, hikari canivore tablets and sera plankton.
sometimes tubifex worms too.
i try to mitigate the parasite fears of tubifex by storing them for a day or two before feeding.
this, i hope with unfounded faith, will purge the worms of unwanted matter.
but like what some say "a little dirt hurt nobody"!
i use leftover as a check on feeding amount.
adjusting till there is some leftover so i know they have enough to eat.
keeping the temparature at least at 30 degrees celsius helps their appetite.
i do think they are still comfortable at 32 degrees.
i know because they had ICK on the first month i got them!
man you have no idea of the feeling i had when i first realized it.
during that time i upped the temperature to 34 degrees celsius for three days.
after that i dropped it to 32 degrees celsius till the spots were gone.
only a month later did i drop the temperature to 30 degrees celsius.


Lighting
my lights come on at 5PM and turn off at 4AM.
i'm quite a night bird so these guys suit me just fine!
during the day the room is a little dark.
light source is only from the side of the window blinds and my room door.


Trigger for Spawning
Lord only knows! you could say i muddled into it.
i cant say for sure but the only corelation i have is the recent rains.
we had very consistent rains in the vening through early this year.
that stopped or became intermittent was about the time they spawned.
now the evening rain is here again who knows what will happen after this bout.
i know we can do dry and wet season simulations with water change and quality.
but we can't affect the air pressure like a rain cloud can.
maybe another way is reduce the height of the water?
also i did drop the temperature briefly to 29 degrees celsius.
then drop it again to 27 degrees after spawning.
i think i was posessed then.
i wanted to slow the development process of the eggs.
now its back to 30 degrees celsius to quicken the fry development.
does this make sense to any of you or am i just being an oxymoron?!?


this is about all i can think of at the moment.
please feel free to post any queries you may have.

[Quixotic]

Thanks for sharing! You must have done something right too if they spawned for you.

Interesting that you chose the bottom to be bare. I suppose it makes maintenance very much easier that way.

Having 13 of them in a 2 feet tank seems to be an overload, given that they are pretty territorial. Good thing you moved some of them.

Not sure about your filtration though. I thought they prefer strong water flows. I thought even with Eden 501 and 316 together, it seems a little under powered.

But you still managed to breed them. So even with not quite the perfect habitat, fishes can still be made to spawn. Hahaha... good luck in bring up the fries!

[Gecko]

Hi celticfish

Congrats on the spawn. Just wanted to share a couple of things:

You might want to be careful with introducing live plants into your breeding tank. Snails get in that way and are known to prey on babies with egg sac still on. Also, the babies are extremely sensitive to big water change. Call me kiasu but with babies, I do no more than 15% wc, its not an urban myth what PUB do sometimes

[blueblue]

very good sharing celtic!!

[StanChung]

Cool man! nice to see your setup!

[celticfish]

@ quixotic
i agree about the under-powered filters.
so i try to compensate with the water changes.

@ gecko
my tank actually has snails.
not a lot but enough to be supplementary cleaners.
according to a guy called plecofarmer (at plecofanatic, i think) he thinks snails add something to their growth rate.
i personally think so too and suspect that they eat the baby snails for added nutrition.
i can't prove that though.
however they (adults and young L046) leave the snail's egg mass alone.
which leads me to suspect my above claim.

@ blueblue
you are welcome!

@ stanchung
stay tune for more updates.
I think "D-day" may happen this weekend instead of the 27th march estimate.
the egg sac seems to have just diminished to a rounded belly size.

[celticfish]

Update 23rd March

picture of fry on 21st march
black strips are showing well and the tail is forming bulk too.



Picture of fry on 22nd march
this is as close as i can get for a picture of them.


reason why the above is as close as i can get...
dad really pissed at me.
notice how he tries to cover the whole cave with the bulk of his body plus his mouth!


a fry under dad.
notice how he angles himself over the little guy with his ventral fin stiffened.
you can also see the thickness of the rear-body.
the tail shape is forming well and as are the black stripes.
also, the egg sac has turned into a little pot-belly.
so i reckon "D-day" should be moved to this weekend.

[celticfish]

i just remove the fry to a breeder tank.
the headcount is confirmed at 11 fry.
i still have my fingers crossed that they ween without casualties to solid food.
should be within the next day or two...
i will try to post some pictures tomorrow.

[celticfish]

24th March
got a glimpse of this little bugger when i woke up in the morning and checked the tank.


by the evening of that day i got the whole lot into a breeder trap.
sorry about the shallow depth-of-field.





this morning (27th march), i have still not seen them eating.
maybe they have some more yoke to work out?
but "D-day" (20 days from eggs) is today.
so they should be dropping like flies from tomorrow onwards if they aren't eating...
but i've been putting some sera micro-pellets and a bit of spirulina tab.
i'll try some spirulina flakes this evening.

the headcount tally is still at 11 pcs.
water change is about 10% daily except weekends 30%
my home has a water tank so i think it helps.
more reports to come.

[valice]

You might also want to try the Hikari Carnivorous sinking pellets. Recommended by Benny to me to try the last time. And really, all my plecos went crazy over it when the pellets hit the deck.

[celticfish]

valice,
i feed that to the adults but didn't think of trying that for the small fellas.
but you are right might be worth a try.
i'm paranoid about them not eating at this stage.

[celticfish]

valice,
i put three little broken piece of hikari canivore tablets and a little spirulina flake.
i didn't see any canivore tablets remaining but i did see some flakes this morning.
thanks again for the suggestion.

general update.
although i haven't seen them munching anything they seem to be ok so far.
they are still very skittish especially with the light on.

[valice]

Hahaha... No issue. I seriously wonder what ingredients those japanese in Hikari put in those tabs. Seems like all fishes go crazy over them. My Apistogramma also will peck at the tabs.