Advice for BN pleco breeding setup

[FyaNyan]

Hi 😄

I want to take a stab at breeding a fish, and my favorite fish has become the bristlenose pleco. I’ve heard that they are not too difficult to breed, but I’d like to get some opinions and advice on how to do this.

I have a 20g long available, cycled, and heated. Will I need a grow out tank, too? (as in, will the parents eat the eggs if not removed?) I’ll need to add some caves and driftwood. Do clay pots work for this? I can grab some spiderwood soon.

I have Omega one veggie wafers. What are some other good foods to give BN plecos?

Any care guides or links to good resources would be appreciated, too!

Thanks for your help!

[Fish Folk]

You certainly can breed BNPs in a 20 gal. I recommend some wood. Pleco caves are very popular for breeding too. The golden or Red strains are very attractive and popular.

The greatest challenge is finding a pair that is mature and ready to breed. Ancistrus take awhile to mature, and if well kept, are a long-lived fish.

Eggs are laid in a cave, crack, etc. I even have som playing eggs under dragon stone pieces. They'll hollow out space. Nature finds a way. Check to see if the CoOp sells a pleco cave. If not, I think Greg Sage at Select Aquatics sells some.

The male guards the eggs and newly hatched fry in the cave awhile. He won't leave or eat much while he's guarding. No, parents do not eat fry. But other fish might. Best scenario is to breed them in a species-only set up. They do respond well to water changes. Mine breed well around 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here's an impromptu journal I recently started on my BNPs' Just scrappy videos here and there...

And here's a fun video my son made a few years ago when he entered BNPs for BAP with our fish club...

 

 

 

[FyaNyan]

Thanks for the information @Fish Folk! I am very happy and excited that you shared your experiences! Neat video, and I’ll check out the journal, too.

[Ken Burke]

On 4/13/2022 at 10:34 PM, Fish Folk said:

You certainly can breed BNPs in a 20 gal. I recommend some wood. Pleco caves are very popular for breeding too. The golden or Red strains are very attractive and popular.

The greatest challenge is finding a pair that is mature and ready to breed. Ancistrus take awhile to mature, and if well kept, are a long-lived fish.

Eggs are laid in a cave, crack, etc. I even have som playing eggs under dragon stone pieces. They'll hollow out space. Nature finds a way. Check to see if the CoOp sells a pleco cave. If not, I think Greg Sage at Select Aquatics sells some.

The male guards the eggs and newly hatched fry in the cave awhile. He won't leave or eat much while he's guarding. No, parents do not eat fry. But other fish might. Best scenario is to breed them in a species-only set up. They do respond well to water changes. Mine breed well around 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here's an impromptu journal I recently started on my BNPs' Just scrappy videos here and there...

And here's a fun video my son made a few years ago when he entered BNPs for BAP with our fish club...

 

 

 

^^
i would add:

 when I bred in a 20L I did not separate the male from the females soon enough.  I had 2 or three spawns in the tank, and it was crowded.  I did not need a separate growout tank, but the juveniles would have benefitted from a bigger tank.

My male prefers a smaller cave opening than the pleco caves available commercially.  I found a Tera cotta jar with an opening right around 1.5”.  I suggest having a few different options available.

to maximize growth, I fed Repashi or other high quality food 3 times daily.  Morning, when I got home from work, and when I went to bed.  And did frequent water changes.  

their spawns are fairly large, so make sure you have an exit strategy.  I could only only sell 10-15 a week at my lfs.  When you have 150 or 200 babies swimming around it takes a long time to sell them all at that rate

 

 

 

 

 

[lefty o]

for egg layers, it doesnt get any easier than bristlenose plecos' take 1 male, and 1 female, give them a cave, log, or ornament they can get in and hide, and soon you'll have a bunch of mini pleco's.

[FyaNyan]

On 4/13/2022 at 11:34 PM, Fish Folk said:

No, parents do not eat fry. But other fish might. Best scenario is to breed them in a species-only set up.

This aligns with what I was hoping to do.    Species-only seems like a good choice. I’m moving my rosy barbs out of the 20g and into my 40 breeder so there will be nothing in the tank.

On 4/13/2022 at 11:34 PM, Fish Folk said:

The greatest challenge is finding a pair that is mature and ready to breed. Ancistrus take awhile to mature.

Do you happen to know what size they are sexually mature at? I saw a 5 inch female at my LFS recently. I also don’t mind waiting a while. Plecos are worth it, IMO.

Edited April 14, 2022 by FyaNyan

[FyaNyan]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:10 AM, Ken Burke said:

 their spawns are fairly large, so make sure you have an exit strategy.

I have a community tank with driftwood, so I can separate the parents. Thanks for the addition!

Edited April 14, 2022 by FyaNyan

[Fish Folk]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:16 AM, FyaNyan said:

I saw a 5 inch female at my LFS recently.

If it's a BNP, that's breeding size for sure!

[FyaNyan]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:26 AM, Fish Folk said:

If it's a BNP, that's breeding size for sure!

It may have been a rubber lip pleco now that I’m thinking about it.

Regardless, I brought home two 3 inch bristle nose plecos today!

Can anyone help confirm the sex of my fish? The first one is probably male because of the bristles, but I wasn’t certain about #2. They are the same size and width. LFS said I can swap out the second one for a female if it turns out to be male, but the guy at the store was pretty sure it was female.

I named them Sid and Sydney. They’re in QT right now and will stay there while I give them preventative medication. Meanwhile, I’m gonna set up their tank so they can move in soon!

Edited April 15, 2022 by FyaNyan

[lefty o]

bottom one looks to be a female, top one could go either way.

[FyaNyan]

This is an alternate pic of the top one; the bristles are higher up the nose, not just around the mouth, so I’m guessing male. We shall see. Do you think it’ll take a few months to tell for sure?

[lefty o]

from that angle, male.

[gardenman]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:39 PM, FyaNyan said:

This is an alternate pic of the top one; the bristles are higher up the nose, not just around the mouth, so I’m guessing male. We shall see. Do you think it’ll take a few months to tell for sure?

Given their size, if you get them well fed, they'll likely start to spawn fairly quickly. They look a bit skinny to me now, so plumping them up would be priority one.

[FyaNyan]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:25 AM, gardenman said:

They look a bit skinny to me now, so plumping them up would be priority one.

I think they look less skinny in person, but for spawning purposes, I’ll make sure they’re well fed regardless!

[Ken Burke]

Repashy after lights out.  Won’t take long to plump them up.  

[Juancho]

This was a quick set up I started for fear of losing another clutch of eggs due to over thinking. I actually have the reds breed in this 20h, and they do well in there no problems getting them to breed. After the eggs turn to wigglers and they munch down there egg sack, I made this rough fry bin, which obviously was inspired by Dean from the co-op. But only had a few parts here and there so this is so rough but works great. I will refine this down the road or maybe not. I like it cause I’m not taking the dad out of his own water or the eggs, fry. It’s heated and always have fresh water going through. There’s about 20-25 reds under that almond leaf 🍂 

[Tihshho]

Key thing with Ancistrus are you need to make them happy. It doesn't take a lot to do it, but over the years I've noticed Ancristrus are like people, they are different when it comes to their needs. Some prefer cleaner tanks to spawn, others like to be left alone with a slightly messy/mulmy tank, and others will spawn as soon as they hit water (that is if they are mature.)

Everyone covered the core stuff, but IME barebottom tanks make breeding of anything easiest as well as being able to maintain a cleaner tank. Some people like to leave the eggs with the Dad, others don't. I personally pull eggs from the Dad and artifically hatch them in order to get the best yield. If it's your first time spawning them, try to let the Dad take care of them. If you notice that the male is constantly eating the eggs, then reassess what you're doing in the tank. If you're not changing anything or contstantly doing stuff in the tank, then you may want to consider pulling the eggs.