When to pull BN pleco fry

[Goosedub]

I have a male BN pleco that has been in a cave with eggs/fry for at least 3-4 days, probably more. I shine a flashlight in the cave and I see the pleco fry in there, the male quickly covers them up. I want to pull them and put them in a breeder box. When should I do this? Or should I puke the male and the cave and put them in their own tank. They are in a community tank and I don’t want them all to be eaten.

[anewbie]

Never. The male will kick them out when they are large enough to be self substaning. As to being eaten - it depends what you have in your tank - guppies can't eat them but an oscar can. There are a lot of fishes between guppies and oscar that can and can't eat them.

[Goosedub]

They are also in a heavily planted 40 breeder and I dont want them getting lost. If they get kicked out of that cave they are going to be incredibly difficult to catch.

[Bsharrow]

Hey,

The easiest thing is always to keep them in the cave.

In my experience you can pull the fry out once they no longer have their yolk sack and move them to another tank without any issue. You could pull them with the yolk sack but they are much more fragile at that stage.

You can look online at how people wash out the fry from the cave by using a small bucket outside of the tank.

It's important that the tank that you transfer them to has lots of food for them. A piece of driftwood from an established tank has lots of tiny foods for them to much on.

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Bsharrow

[Guppysnail]

In my experience with breeding mine the biofilm is essential to they fry. The batches of mine that had biofilm did much better than the following batch that the film had been eaten by the first batch. I do not recommend breeder boxes. You can pick the cave up with dad in he will stay put and put dad-cave- fry as is in a tank. When dad kicks them out return dad to his home.  I would also not remove the fry from dad until he kicks them out. Hope that helps. 

[Juancho]

On 3/17/2022 at 1:26 PM, Bsharrow said:

Hey,

The easiest thing is always to keep them in the cave.

In my experience you can pull the fry out once they no longer have their yolk sack and move them to another tank without any issue. You could pull them with the yolk sack but they are much more fragile at that stage.

You can look online at how people wash out the fry from the cave by using a small bucket outside of the tank.

It's important that the tank that you transfer them to has lots of food for them. A piece of driftwood from an established tank has lots of tiny foods for them to much on.

 

I have a question along this topic. So I had to pull the eggs from my super red breeding pair. This is the 3rd clutch and I pulled them cause the last two the dad destroyed them or doesn’t watch them. I put the eggs in a tumbler and they just hatched. They look well, except I have some eggs that were fungal and now there in the tumbler looking big and clear with a white dot in the middle.  Should I remove them from the wigglers ? Or leave them till I put them in a breeder box?  Thanks  

[Bsharrow]

@JuanchoIf you're able to remove the eggs that with fungus on them that would be the best thing. You could use something like a pipette or turkey baster to suck them out.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Bsharrow

[Juancho]

Thanks I’ll give that a try see wha happens. 

[Ken Burke]

On 3/17/2022 at 11:53 AM, anewbie said:

Never. The male will kick them out when they are large enough to be self substaning. As to being eaten - it depends what you have in your tank - guppies can't eat them but an oscar can. There are a lot of fishes between guppies and oscar that can and can't eat them.

Exactly.  And, unless you want an endless chain of fry - pull the female.  They have fairly large spawns, and I wound up with 2 or 3 hundred of the little beggars before I figured it out.