Should I pull the eggs?

[Nik_n]

I have a male bristelnose pleco on eggs. This is his second batch ever. I'm pretty sure he ate the first one because the appisotgramma found the eggs. They both died (the appistos from the store are very poor quality, I was talking on an employee in my LFS and he complained about the supplier.) Now I'm debating, if I should leave the eggs in the cave, let the dad take care of them until they are wigglers/free swimming and then raise them up myself. I'm really excite to breed this fish I want to do it for a long time but never had an old enough pair. 

I know that by removing the eggs now there is a major risk of fungus developing on them. I don't have an egg bubbler and believe that letting the dad take care of them is the best option, even tho they are in a community tank. 

How long do these fish take to grow. I would keep them in a 60l tank, feed them 3-4 times a day and do a 70% water change 2-3 times a week.    

[Guppysnail]

They grow FAST. In my journal linkenked in my signature I have a detailed account of 3 spawns of my lemon BN including pics and videos noting their development. I’m not sciencey so it light hearted not technical but may give you one ideas. They lay like clockwork once they get going given enough food veggies and protein for mom. So no harm in letting dad try again. There may have been something wrong with the eggs. They are dynamite and protective dads. I’m not a pro breeder I just happened to have success. My recommendation would be allow dad to try again and if you are pulling them wait a day or two after hatch then lift the cave out before he releases the fry. They do better in a seasoned setup as biofilm seems to be essential and Indian almond leaves helped mine. Good luck. The babies are awesome fun and cute as buttons 😁

[Nik_n]

I don't know if you heard about using cold water to trigger the fish to spawn. I feed veggies and bloodworms right before and 2 days later I saw the male and the female in the cave. The first spawn was about a month ago, even less I think. I'm glad to her that they grow up quickly.  

[HH Morant]

I pull the cave with the wigglers in it. In a community tank, as soon as they become free-swimming some of them are going to leave the cave and be eaten.

I am not sure whether leaving the eggs in the cave - with the male parent guarding and fanning them - is important for hatch rate, but it is low-risk.

I fed Repashy twice a day. It takes the little buggers an hour or so to eat it, so I thought they were getting plenty. There was also a lot of algae in the tank. Water changes are good, and as they get bigger, plecos have a bigger-than-average bio-load (they poop a lot). I had 80 of them in a 20-gallon tank with some plants, a seasoned sponge filter, and an algae problem because it was near a window (not a problem for little plecos). I did 75% water changes every other day. It will take 3 months for them to get to a size that a pet shop will accept. I think I kept mine longer than that.

[Brandon p]

Go look at @Guppysnailplecos it’s worth your time.

I let mine stay in the cave unless I have had issues with the parents. Once they start coming out of the cave I put them in a grow out tank.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Brandon p

[Nik_n]

I saw the baby plecos they sell in my LFS. They are tiny, about 3-5 cm. I don't know how long it will take them to grow to that size. I'm pretty sure that plecos (commons especially) are in high demand in my LFS, so I don't think they will be too hard to get rid off

[Brandon p]

If you don’t have a a relationship with that LFS you might be surprised at it can be hard to pay for them. Most that I deal with won’t just take fish from a stranger. Once you can get them to start trading that’s good. Once you start getting paid it will be pennies on the dollars especially for BN’s. The only time it’s changed is if you have something rare or perfect quality. Be patient talk to every fish store and don’t go and offer to sell your fish first thing. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

They’ll sell well. With my last pulling of fry I tried to pull all of mine but after 2 attempts there was still some residual kiddos and a few survive and others get picked off. The growouts I have presently in a growout are doing great. My LFS is selling longfins for at least double the cost of SF. If they are more interesting color forms same thing and if they are colored and LF 3x the price. Mine are calico longfin, some albino and regular long fin.  When I mentioned that I thought I’d have some next time I come in they said to bring them in. I’ll update when I sell regarding pricing but this is in Oregon. I am sure there is regional variations. 

[Brandon p]

@Nik_n. @Beardedbillygoat1975 I’m in south fla where it a lot of imports and farms are so that may be the issue here. If you have. L 134’s now they were offering $100 and selling for $180. I didn’t have any now and am looking for a Second female. I did not mean that you could not make it or you should not try. Beardedbillygoat and I have had different experiences and hopefully yours will be closer to his. I wanted you to know it could be a slow start. Hopefully it will. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

All good @Brandon pas you said regional differences make a difference and we can all learn from each other. There is definitely fish to fish differences in how they care for their egg clutches and the numbers the females lay. I’m super jealous of Floridian’s options for fish, tanks etc. it obviously a trade off when you’re trying to fund your hobby! 

[Brandon p]

It fun and if you know the right people you can get any fish you want. These thing here is everyone tries an aquarium from 100’s of gallons to 10 gal. You can get very good used tanks. And avg. tanks for great prices

[Nik_n]

I live and Switzerland and here the fish are sold for 10chf (about 11$). They had a couple of super red (almost double as expensive)  bp as well but they were too young to breed and I wanted to try my luck with the common type first. Unfortunately I only have one tank big enough for plecos so I'm not looking to add any more, unless the fish store has a rare type (super reds or blue eyes) which are big enough to breed so I can make some profit. Honestly I'm not doing it for profit, but rather for the fun of it.     

[gardenman]

The only time I pull the eggs is when a rival female comes along and knocks them out of the cave so she can lay hers there. Now, I'm not trying to mass produce Super Reds at this point as I'm up to my eyeballs in them. So, I just leave the fry to try and survive in the tanks with a bunch of ravenous swordtails. My big female Super Reds tend to lay 100 or more eggs at a time, so the numbers get a bit crazy pretty quickly if you try to keep them all. I have six Super Red plecos in my ten-gallon tank and the big female is trying to convince a younger male to spawn as I type this. He's claimed a pleco cave and she's pretty intent on getting in there and laying her eggs. He's more in the "I'm not sure I'm ready to be a daddy yet" mode and swims away when she pushes past him and goes into the cave. She'll then come out looking around for him only to find him gone. Once she's swum away, he'll head back to the cave and the pattern repeats.

[Guppysnail]

@gardenmanI have seen this “you will be a daddy like it or not” bullying. It’s comical. 

[gardenman]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:35 AM, Guppysnail said:

@gardenmanI have seen this “you will be a daddy like it or not” bullying. It’s comical. 

Yeah, it's funny to watch. I'm not wildly optimistic that if she lays her eggs, he'll fertilize them. He's got the "claiming a cave" part of being a male pleco down pat, but the rest of what happens he isn't quite up to speed on. He's still a young guy from last December's spawn so he'll learn over time. She seems very frustrated with him for now though,  

[Guppysnail]

@gardenmanMine was a baby daddy at 10 months. He was just learning grooming caves. He had whiskers just starting to poke through and emerged from the cave with babies and whiskers. But you are very correct once they start quick overpopulation is imminent 

[gardenman]

It's not easy being a male pleco. You're expected to find or build a cave. Clean it. Show off your egg fanning technique to any females in the area. Then lure them into your cave and trap them there until they lay their eggs. Then you give up everything and fan the eggs until they hatch, then guard the fry until they're free-swimming, then repeat the process endlessly. This guy's just not sure he's ready to give up the bachelor lifestyle just yet. The bigger older female wants to lay her eggs though and he was dumb enough to claim a cave, so she's decided he's going to be the baby daddy whether he wants to or not. Five of the plecos in that tank are from last December's spawn and just about a year old. There are three males and two females. The older female is a couple of years old and she's ready now.  She's a big girl too, so she's another of the hundred-plus egg layers. She can't quite understand why he swims away when she enters his nice clean cave. In human terms, she's slipped into the bathroom to change into some sexy negligee, only to emerge and find out the guy has left.  "What?" He's more in the "A hundred plus fry to look after? I'm not ready for that!" mode. Who will win? Probably her. She's very determined he's going to be her baby daddy. It's fun to watch the drama play out.

[Nik_n]

On 12/3/2021 at 3:03 PM, gardenman said:

The only time I pull the eggs is when a rival female comes along and knocks them out of the cave so she can lay hers there. Now, I'm not trying to mass produce Super Reds at this point as I'm up to my eyeballs in them. So, I just leave the fry to try and survive in the tanks with a bunch of ravenous swordtails. My big female Super Reds tend to lay 100 or more eggs at a time, so the numbers get a bit crazy pretty quickly if you try to keep them all. I have six Super Red plecos in my ten-gallon tank and the big female is trying to convince a younger male to spawn as I type this. He's claimed a pleco cave and she's pretty intent on getting in there and laying her eggs. He's more in the "I'm not sure I'm ready to be a daddy yet" mode and swims away when she pushes past him and goes into the cave. She'll then come out looking around for him only to find him gone. Once she's swum away, he'll head back to the cave and the pattern repeats.

I have 2 females, one of breeding age and the other one is close to it. They are both similar in size, so I'm not sure who is the mum. I haven't seen any aggression between them.  I'm guessing the older one as they spawned before but there is a chance it's the other one. I was considering just adding a male of breeding age (either lemon eye or super red) so that I have two males and two females. I hope they would spawn regardless of colour, I heard it has been done before. This way I could offer some other plecos to my LFS without massively increasing the bio load of the tank. I'm not sure about the ratio of the fry, but I'm guessing it would be 70% common and 30% whatever other variety. Would I get some mixed ones? I don't think I ever saw any, they would carry a gene for both but express only one trait, am I right?  

[Nik_n]

Quick update; The male has been sitting on eggs for about 5 days now. I noticed that the bigger female hangs around the cave quit often, so I'm guessing those are not her eggs in there. Should I pull the eggs now? I haven't seen any fry outside of the cave, and the cave is angled in a position at which I can't see inside without moving it. Also if I move the cave to check for wigglers, will the dad freak out and leave the eggs? 

[Guppysnail]

On 12/5/2021 at 7:22 AM, Nik_n said:

Quick update; The male has been sitting on eggs for about 5 days now. I noticed that the bigger female hangs around the cave quit often, so I'm guessing those are not her eggs in there. Should I pull the eggs now? I haven't seen any fry outside of the cave, and the cave is angled in a position at which I can't see inside without moving it. Also if I move the cave to check for wigglers, will the dad freak out and leave the eggs? 

He will and may or may not return to fan but this gives the fem a chance to destroy the eggs. Also my female hovers near the cave until dad releases the fry. I’m not sure if that standard this is the only pair I’ve kept. $30 you can get a 3ft submersible endoscope on Amazon. It’s what I use if I can’t see in. Sit a veggie immediately outside the cave. If they have hatched mine will take a quick nibble if they have not he won’t. I’ve never pulled mine until they are free and the yolk is absorbed.

[Nik_n]

Today was the only day he went out of the cave fully. He stayed out for a min or two can then went back inside and kept doing this over and over again. He is still fanning the cave, but I'm sure at least some of them are wigglers. I don't want to keep them in there for too long otherwise they will be realised and picked off very quickly. So I'm guessing I should try and take a look in the cave without moving it or disturbing the dad. 

After this spawn, could I reposition the cave? There are two caves in the tank and her really likes the one he is in, it a smaller pleco cave the other one is a bit larger. Would he still continue to breed even tho I moved his cave or should I leave it as is since he claimed it already?  

[Ken Burke]

When I bred BN plecos I had one male and two adult females and 2 caves.  The male definitely preferred the cave with a smaller hole.  
 

They were very prolific. After 4 months, i pulled the females, but not before I had several hundred baby’s in a 20 long.  I have one lfs that will buy local, but they could only sell about 10 - 15 fish a month.  Took me 6 to eight months to sell them off.  I still have around ten of the little beggars that need a home.  
 

I fed them thee times daily, before lights on, after work, and when I went to bed.  Keeping up with the water changes was a challenge, and near the end my tank crashed.  I lost about 80 nice sized fish, including both females.  
 

if I were breeding them again, I definitely would pull the male after the fry were free swimming.  

[Guppysnail]

On 12/5/2021 at 8:28 AM, Nik_n said:

After this spawn, could I reposition the cave

Yes I did after the first one so I could see in. I didn’t move it too far though. 

[Nik_n]

I was considering moving the cave with the male to another tank for a little while. That way I would get a better view on the cave and know what stage of development the fry is at. Would it be possible to do that, if the male stays in the cave during transport or would he jump out as soon as I move the cave? If not when would approximately be the right time to take the fry out. I can't see inside the cave which is really annoying, and I haven't seen any of the babies in the main tank, which either means that they are too young or that the male is doing a great job of keeping the fry inside. The male has been sitting on eggs for about 5 days now. I was planning to leave him for today and tomorrow and pull the fry day after tomorrow (Wednesday for me). Would this be a good course of action? Or should I just try and move the cave so that I can see inside better, but I do not want to disturb the male.