Pleco Babies Dying Off

[Saltinthedesert]

Had my chocolate/standard bristlenose and Albino bristlenose meet each other a few weeks ago and disappear almost immeadiately. Shortly thereafter noticed about 50 baby plecos (in both colors) all over the tank. The tank is cycled and about 9 months old. Water changes every 2 weeks. 

Everything was uneventful until a few days ago when I noticed a dozen or so dead baby pleco bodies on the bottom each day. 

Water parameters are solid, pH hasn’t moved from 6.8, temp has been consistent around 75°, no ammonia, metals, or nitrite. Nitrate around 8. 

I’m wondering if there wasn’t enough biofilm and organic matter for them to continue growing. There’s maybe 4-5 left. Sad to lose so many. The rest of the tank is chugging along (yellow shrimp and endlers/guppies). 

Question 1: how much would you increase food in the tank for 50 baby plecos?

Question 2: theories on the mass deaths?

[Andrew Puhr]

I had the same problem originally. They eat a lot originally so I would throw in half a zucchini every other day (remove uneaten after 24 hours). Once I did that and put them in a larger tank with regular changes that become a non issue. I would have driftwood too if you can help it

[Andrew Puhr]

 Make sure to weigh down the zucchini using a butter knife or grill skewers 

Just now, Andrew Puhr said:

I had the same problem originally. They eat a lot originally so I would throw in half a zucchini every other day (remove uneaten after 24 hours). Once I did that and put them in a larger tank with regular changes that become a non issue. I would have driftwood too if you can help it

 

[gardenman]

Baby plecos eat a lot. It's hard to overfeed them. You always get some die off with baby fish. Some might have genetic issues. Some might get killed by tankmates. Some might lose out when competing for food. The babies when young still have their yolk sac which is pretty fragile. Their hearts are right there and somewhat exposed. Even something as small as an endler, pecking at the wrong place could kill a baby pleco pretty easily.

[Struggle]

As stated above make sure there is lots of food, they can eat almost continuously. I’ve noticed that they do better at first in smaller tanks so that they don’t have to search food as much and then move them to a larger tank as needed. Just make sure that the filtration is mature / well seasoned so that it can handle the constant waste from so much food. I go so far as keeping them in planted tanks while growing them out but it’s murder catching those things out of there.

[Fish Folk]

You must have well-seasoned wood. Also I recommend dead, dried oak leaf litter. You also should feed zucchini. You do not need to weigh it down if you prep a little. First, slice into salad-bar-sized discs. Then cut off the rind. Then boil for a minute or so until they sink. Sometimes push them under water boiling in a pan with the back of a large kitchen spoon. If you have time to watch, here’s a crazy BAP journal on a spawn from last year. Not an ideal breeding scenario by far! but nature finds a way... [Go to 7:44 on the video to see an example of things specifically discussed in this thread]

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Fish Folk

[Saltinthedesert]

Super helpful everyone. How many “salad bar slices” of zucchini would you put in everyday for 50 fry?

[Struggle]

Good point on the wood and leaves. For myself as far as zucchini goes, I try and feed enough that most of it’s eaten in a 24 hour period and throw away the left overs. One thing I try to make sure of is that there’s enough surface area for all of the babies to eat if they so choose to. Amount is trial and error and sometimes they run out of food and sometimes there’s some left over. 

[Fish Folk]

Good advice from Struggle. We are pretty limited with how much we can feed. Maybe 1x - 2x zucchini disks a day, plus we fed other things (sera-micron, bbs, algae wafers) in a wood-filled, oak-leaf-litter-bottomed grow out tank. 

[Fish Folk]

1 hour ago, Struggle said:

but it’s murder catching those things out of there.

TRUTH!!

[gardenman]

I've got about 110 Super Red Bristlenose fry now in my little Marina hang on breeder box. They've got a piece of cholla wood, an old maple leaf, a chunk of Anubias Nana Petite that's covered in algae, some Repashy Soilent Green, canned green bean, I dropped in a couple of pieces of the TetraColor granules today for them also. When they get bigger (they're about a half inch long now) they'll get some freeze-dried tubifex worms also, but the worms are just a tick too big for them now. The Marina breeder box is on the outside of my heavily planted twenty high tank that is well established and I've got about four pond snails in the breeder box also.  The box is nice in that I can circulate water through it to keep the water in the box fresh. It's moving about a teaspoon of water every second or two through the box so there's always some fresh water circulating through. That helps to eliminate any water quality issues. At this stage you can see their internal organs so you can see if they're eating and based on color, what they're eating. 

As to catching them in a planted tank, my older Super Reds are suckers (pardon the pun) for freeze-dried tubifex worms and get three or four cubes every afternoon. When I want to catch one or more I just put the cubes in pressed against the glass and  I have my pick of ten or more plecos that are easily caught as they're distracted by the tubifex worms. The photo below shows about fourteen of the thirty or so in the big tank on or around the tubifex worms. When the worms are in the tank, you can pretty much collect the plecos by hand. They get very distracted eating the worms. They ignore the net, your hands, and everything else and focus on the worms. They love them.