BN's and breeding

[Astevens4]

Had BN's for years in various tanks and they are brilliant characters, so thought in the Juwel 260 which is currently almost empty (handful of platties) i'd have a punt at breeding them.

So many an hour was spent looking at the guides and youtube vids - which basically boiled down to a) give them caves, b) give them bogwood, and c) don't overcrowd them, and pretty soon you'll be overrun with babies.

So Perfect i thought, i'm not short of tanks for the babies to go into on a more permanent basis, and i went out and brought 3 super reds. I asked for a trio, but the LFS in question is a MA, so skill at gender based sexing is likely to be questionable at best. They are circa 2" long at the moment, but i can see no discernable bristles on any of them.

So what age / size should gender begin to become apparent, and what age / size are they likely to begin breeding?

Also any particular tips? I'm only planning a single breeding, just for the experience of it and have enough community tanks (i'm a sucker for bargain tanks - please don't judge my addiction!), that if i miss any eggs or fry i can find homes after batch 1 but i'll treat them like Betta's and create an all female group in the Juwel, and a male each into the various other tanks / give away surplus males if i end up being overrun with boys from the first breeding.

Any comments suggestions or thoughts?

Tony

[TropicalFishForums]

[plankton]

2" (without the tail) is about the time they should start showing whether they're male or female.
Females have a few around the mouth, males should show one or two up the snout towards the eyes.

[alexd]

Had BN's for years in various tanks and they are brilliant characters, so thought in the Juwel 260 which is currently almost empty (handful of platties) i'd have a punt at breeding them.

So many an hour was spent looking at the guides and youtube vids - which basically boiled down to a) give them caves, b) give them bogwood, and c) don't overcrowd them, and pretty soon you'll be overrun with babies.

So Perfect i thought, i'm not short of tanks for the babies to go into on a more permanent basis, and i went out and brought 3 super reds. I asked for a trio, but the LFS in question is a MA, so skill at gender based sexing is likely to be questionable at best. They are circa 2" long at the moment, but i can see no discernable bristles on any of them.

So what age / size should gender begin to become apparent, and what age / size are they likely to begin breeding?

Also any particular tips? I'm only planning a single breeding, just for the experience of it and have enough community tanks (i'm a sucker for bargain tanks - please don't judge my addiction!), that if i miss any eggs or fry i can find homes after batch 1 but i'll treat them like Betta's and create an all female group in the Juwel, and a male each into the various other tanks / give away surplus males if i end up being overrun with boys from the first breeding.

Any comments suggestions or thoughts?

Tony

Hi - my plecos started breeding at the age of 1 in a juwel 260, however the first few batches off eggs were unsuccessful as the male did not guard them properly, or they were not attached to the cave wall and just drifted out, maybe the male and female were not mature enough in the beginning to successfully lay and guard the eggs.

I had a very successful first batch around 4 months ago with around 90 fry - I moved them to a smaller tank before the male released them (just lifted the cave out and transferred it with the fry inside it)
I kept them for around 3 months before exchanging them for some fish in my local LFS. He gave me £50 worth of fish so not bad for me, and great for him as he sells them on for £9.99 for the smallest ones!

I used a double slate cave with fry saver that I got off Ebay.

My breeding pair spawn every 6 weeks or so now. I lost the last batch to my clown loach who must have thought it was Christmas come early!

Some things I have learned!
Don't shine a torch in the cave to see if there are any eggs, the male really doesn't like that!
Do a big water change as this may induce spawning.
I removed the fry before they became free swimming and put them in a smaller tank, most of them survived which was great. I did daily water changes and fed them on zucchini and good quality wafers.
I did learn that the babies easily get trapped in the filter when they are small so depending on what filter you used I would check quite often initially.

Good luck with your breeding plans!