tolstoy21

I learned this past year that they are attracted to humidity and moisture. Problem solved with a dehumidifier and some glue traps made specifically for crickets. I thought I had maybe a few dozen of them. After a couple days with the glue traps out I discovered there were HUNDREDS! RIP camel crickets. Also, oscars regard them as tasty treats, but they are a bit hard to catch (for me at least, not the oscars)!

@TheSwissAquarist My fish room is pretty cookie-cutter and not completely finished. What makes it unique? Um . . . . an infestation of camel crickets? Oh also, it's powered by hopes and unfulfilled dreams! (Well that and a decent amount of electricity)

@itsfoxtail Chickend out and just used Equilibrium. But I can't imagine a reason why one couldn't use it.

Cool. I have some Equilibrium laying around. I'll try putting a pinch in next time I change water. I also have SaltyShrimp Gh+ on hand which could work as well. Neither of these move the needle on Kh, so acidity won't be affected. Yeah to keep and enjoy as a species, I believe they do fine at something closer to a neutral Ph.

@anewbie @TheSwissAquarist Thanks for all the pointers everyone. At this point, I think this is now less about if the fathers will be good care-takers, or if the fry will get eaten, and more about what works best for me in my scenario. If pulling them and leaving them in the parents' tank have the same outcome in terms of survivability and fry/juvenile health, I'm going to pull them.

Thanks for the response. I think I'm going to get in the habit of pulling them, only because I plan on selling them, and keeping them in grow outs allows me to have a better understanding of how many fish I have available, how they are doing, and keeps me from tearing apart the parents' aquarium to find and net fish, which I find causes a decent amount of stress to some fish species if you have to do it frequently. Again thanks for the response. Truly appreciated!

@Odd Duck The tank is only L397s and neocaridina culls. It's a 40 breeder with 9 adults. I do plan on selling them so I should probably get in the habit of pulling them and moving them to grow outs just to make things easier so I'm not always pulling the adult's tank apart to net fish out. I'm happy that they spawned on their own without me having to do the whole 'trigger spawning' song and dance. The water is very clean in this tank as a large volume of it auto-changes out daily. I have a Aquaclear 110 full of PolyFil and ceramic media (yes, totally oversized!!) to filter it and it does a very good job of pulling out all the crud that plecos deposit daily (aka wood-filled poop!) I guess the clean, somewhat acidic water conditions did the trick?

Ok, I just emptied one of the caves. It held about a dozen fry. Another pleco is sitting on eggs. Don't have a tumbler so I guess I'll just have to let these hatch out with the parent as well. There are probably some more fry scurrying about, but I'll just let them grow out in the tank and leave them be. I seriously had no idea at all these fish were already breeding.

So I've had L397's for about 1 1/2 years now. Other than caring for them, I really don't pay much attention to them, assuming they had to be a bit older to breed. I also use my L397 tank to keep neocadina culls where they breed like mad. Every week or so, I go in and pull out any good looking shrimp and put them back into their colony, and then feed the rest to my fish. Today when I was netting out shrimp I noticed one, lone little wiggler in the sand, attached to its yolk sack. Totally blew my mind. I have all the pleco caves under a really thick piece of bog wood. It's hard to see under the log's overhang and into their caves so I figured I would lift the wood to get a better view. On the bottom side of the log were a couple juvenile L397s who quickly scurried off into a big patch of java fern! No idea how many are actually in there. So . . . . . . . . excitement (and long story) over, I now have a question or two! Is there any advantage to actively removing fry or eggs from the caves, and putting them in an egg tumbler or breeder box respectively, or, is it best to just let the parents do their thing and rear the fry? Do you get more fry by pulling them or by having the parents raise them? One fry got kicked out of the cave, but I didn't see any others. I'm guessing this is typical? Should I be looking for others? Also, should I be monitoring these fish more for signs that they are breeding or that they have fry in their caves? Any advice? This is my very first experience with spawning plecos of any sort. Thanks for once again for reading one of my typical, wordy posts if you got this far!

I doubt caridina species are going to breed at that Ph level (and probably won't do well at all). I've actually had Orange Rili in my caridina tank, but as @JettsPapa said, they didn't do great compared to the crystal reds. They do much better, much better in an environment more suited to their liking. I run my caridina tanks down near Ph 6. Likewise, I have kept Crystal Reds in my Orange RIli tank (they got in there somehow unknown to me!), and they did fine, but didn't breed at all. So while it is certainly possible to keep these species together, one species doesn't do as well as the other. Now, on the other hand, my Orange Rilis do breed like mad in a Ph of 6.4-6.6 (Kh 0, Gh8). But this is after many generations and a couple years of culling. So it could just be this line that's now doing well in softer water due to selective breeding. (I didn't do this intentionally, just working with the water I have). In the end, if you are going to attempt something like this, go for a more neutral Ph, something closer to like 6.8 - 7.0. And try out something like Crystal Red or Crystal Black shrimp that are typically more forgiving than some of the more expensive caridinas.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea@Fish Folk I use a hot-wire-cutter I got off Amazon. You can get these as cutting tables or hand-held cutters depending on your needs. They make amazingly super-clean, precise cuts and are used regularly in arts-n-crafts for people who work with foam. They cut through foam like the foam were made out of butter.

@anewbie Ok, very quick snaps of the male and some fry. Admittedly not my best photos!

I believe they are F1 from wild caught. So, tank-bred but not too divorced from wild. I acquired 2 pairs a few months back. One has spawned, but, alas, the other pair turned out to be 2 males. Happy to share some pics. I'll try to snap some today.

I haven't seen a decline yet. For the Adoketa, I have read that their typical environment is full of decaying leaves and twigs and has a natural Ph of between 3 and 4 and a dGh of 0 to 1. The specific fish I have are F1 from wild caught and as far as I could tell the breeder kept them in very soft water. I had them in the 6s for a short spell and they were fine, but I am trying to breed these so I have their Ph bottomed out and have been running their water pretty pure. It wouldn't be too hard, and perhaps not a bad idea, for me to periodically give them a touch of mineral hardness. How long was it before you noticed decline in your blackwater species? What did that decline look like? I've had my adoketa for probably a year now. The only other blackwater species I have is also an F1 from wild caught. Apistogramma Abacaxis. I have read they will only breed in a Ph near 4, but I do not know if this is just a seasonal thing or a long term preference for this species. Supposedly Abacaxis are tolerant of higher Ph ranges and water hardness and I do have plans of acclimating my current batch of fry to more 'typical' planted aquarium parameters once they are a little older. I could probably do the same with the parents in the tank, if in fact, their blackwater preference is simply rainy season breeding preference. Anyway, thanks for the 'heads up' in sharing your experience. @Desktop Aquatics Good luck with these! I absolutely love this species! Feel free to ask me any questions about them. I'm no expert, that's for sure, but if I have anything helpful to share, I'd be glad to do so.

The RO water will reduce the KH via dilution which should start to influence your Ph downward. I keep my adoketa in straight RO water with leaf litter and peat moss. In my experience they can handle a Ph down into the 4s. I would do a big water change with RO water and add your botanicals before you receive them to at least get the Ph down into the 6 range and just acclimate them as you’d acclimate any fish. Then continue to change out water till you hit your target Ph. I’m not sure what their upper range limit is in terms of Ph, but they do like to breed in very acidic conditions with little to no mineral content in the water.

They are in the following: Ph: 4.5 - 5.0 Kh: 0 Gh: 0 TDS: around 60 if I recall Temp: 78-80F Yeah, I understand that blackwater is not just about tannin-stained water. I use a combination of peat pellets in a box filter and oak leaf litter to keep the Ph reliably in in the 4 - 5 range. They have been in this setup for about a year. I also breed Apistogramma Abacaxis in a very similar setup and have been much more successful with them than with the Ivancara. After a few days time, I still have two Ivancara wigglers going strong. I think the max that I saw in the breeder box was four. None of the other eggs hatched. Next go-round I might try an egg tumbler on a very gentle setting. For anyone interested, the Ivancara eggs are sticky, but they were easy to brush off the cave roof with a soft-bristled paint brush, the kind one sees in a watercolor kit.

Yeah I did find threads about this on Apistogramma.com today after reading your original reply. So far, I've only had this pair by themselves in their own dedicated tank. The male and female get along great and never ever show aggression towards one another and often hang out side-by-side in their cave for long periods of time. They spawn quite routinely. But as you know, getting the eggs to develop into free-swimming fry is my current challenge. Definitely my current favorite fish.

Well I'm not sure how long the neo's would have lasted on their own in that environment. They were meant as food more not tank mates, so their welfare was not part of the equation. They did last some days though. I'll admit I don't have much experience with them in a 'community' tank. They just seem peaceful to me, and the literature I see around the internet seems to suggest the same. But, as we know, the internet isn't always right. Have you been successful in breeding Ivancara Adoketa?

Hmmm . . . as far as what I've observed and read, they are super duper peaceful. In fact, I put a TON of neocaradina culls in the tank, thinking they would eat them. But there were so many shrimp darting around, the Acara actually got scared and cowered in their caves until I reduced the number or shrimp! As far as the methylene blue dosage and duration goes . . . . . I guess I'll find out through the good-old-fashioned scientific method of trial-and-error! At least now I've gotten further than I have in the past with these fish, which is getting to the wiggler stage. Every little step forward is progress even if I don't succeed this go round. These fish have spawned before (many times) so they will spawn again. I have process of triggering them pretty ironed out at this point. Thanks anyone and everyone who has contributed to this thread.

Thanks. That's a good tip. I've heard that Invancara Adoketa (aka Zebra Acara) fry are super sensitive to water quality, which is one of the challenges to breeding them (other than keeping the Ph way down in the 4s). Thanks too for the rest of the info, links, etc. Much appreciated. I plan on reading through it today.

@anewbie So I'm definitely seeing wigglers. In your experience should I start changing out the water? They are in a breeder box so I can begin the process of dripping out the meth blue water for tank water. @nabokovfan87 They look like below!

You can build one out of many kinds of materials. So the more important question is -- what kind of tools do you have available to work with? That's going to be your determining factor. Unless you really enjoy building things or if you're looking to do it cheaper, I'd buy one and save yourself the hassle.

Yeah this was the pair's 6th attempt (that I know of), so I figured "Hey give me a turn, would ya!" Honestly, I'm just trying to determine if the eggs are viable when laid. I've been breeding for maybe 3+ years now. I've had the zebra acara for about a year. However, this is my first time pulling eggs from a dwarf cichlid. Typically I let the fry become free swimming and then remove one or both of the parents, depending on the situation. So not my first eggs. But my first attempt at pulling eggs and keeping them in meth blue. Like I've said in the past . . . I'm not afraid to admit that I have A LOT to learn still. What did you have spawn? It is always exciting to see eggs or fry!

Oh, I forgot to look at the title of this thread. Hmmm . . . . 10 gallon aquarium? Doable, but it will depend on the size of the spawn. I've had spawns range in size anywhere from a dozen to well over a hundred fry.

As long as the parents don't initially eat all the fry, you can keep the fry in with the parents and grow them out. However, if the parents spawn a second time, there might be some aggression from the female to the last batch of fry. To avoid this, you can always remove the breeding cave, or if you suspect she's spawned on driftwood or a leave or something, just pull the eggs. I've never had two consecutive spawns in the same tank at the same time, but I did have a female lay a second time about 2 months after she first spawned. Additionally, some females can become very aggressive and beat up the male if they are defending newborn fry. So, just make sure there is space and cover enough for the male to stay out of the female's sight. All of the above also varies depending on tank size and setup.