trouble breeding peps

hi there,great site by the way just found it.
Im having trouble getting my pair of peps to breed, i bought them as a known breeding pair apparently and have them setup in a 120L tank with a sponge and powerhead filter. i have several caves in there and the male has taken up residence in a discus breeding pot which i have covered half the entrance over so that the gap is about double his size. i feed them zuchini cucumber and wafers and there is heaps of driftwood and plants in the tank to. The temp is 26 the nitrate level is 0 and the carbonate hardness is about 40. but the ph is 7.3 which is low as i can get it without adding chemicals to lower it which i really want to steer away from. i have tried dropping the level of the tank down to bout 25% for a few days then filling up. Nothing i do seems to work. PLEASE HELP ME

hi there!
welcome to bristlenose world
i too have peps that im trying to breed. i have tried everything i have read to do, but sometimes you just gotta leave them to themselves and hopefully in their own time they are ready to breed. don't give up though!
your triggering technique seems a little extreme by dropping the level to 25% of the tank and then re-filling it up. to me i would be worried about cycling the tank all the time and getting high ammonia readings etc.
usually the common triggering way for bn is:
-increase temp to 28 degrees for a week
-wait til there is a drop in atmospheric pressure (or about a week if you don't want to wait)
-do a big cold water change of 40% and drop temp to about 20 - 22 degrees.
-leave them alone for a few days and hopefully the spawn.
that's a very brief description.
have you tested your water recently other than nitrate? btw, others can correct me if im wrong, but a i'd be worried having a 0 reading of nitrate, i've always been told to have at least a small reading of 5 - 10.
how long have you had them? perhaps they just need to settle in for a few months first.
purchase Doug's bristlenose ebook online for heaps of info - it's a great read and i have learnt heaps from it
hope this helps and let us know how it all goes

Hi there, thanks for the quick reply, dropping the tank that much was apparently the method used by the breeder i bought them off but as you know it hasnt worked for me. i am in the middle of trying a method curby posted by doing 20% cold water changes for a few days so ill c how that goes and if that doesnt work ill give your method a go. The pepshave been in this tank for bout 5 months. From what i have read on this site maybe i should try a trio to get the girls competing. Do u think i should be concerned about the ph being over 7. Thanks again for all your good feedback.

Yeah, I agree with Pep23, the drop in level is an old and out dated technique and will produce problems with the tank cycling.

Curby's technique is good. Different pairs respond to different things. I have had success with his technique. The idea is to replicate the rainy season in the amazon. Thats why the pressue drops are important.


The other thing is how long have you had them? Peps are well known for being shy and taking a while to get over a move. Sometimes taking over 4 months to get back into the swing of things.

yep give curby's method a try also another thing to remember is if you are constantly trying to trigger them then that will soon become the 'normal' thing for them so try leaving them alone for 3 - 5 weeks and then trigger and if nothing, wait again, and keep trying. that's what i have tried, i have just been conditioning with normal weekly water changes for just over a month now and this weekend i will try to trigger when we have a change in weather (adelaide). as for pair or trio or colony - not too sure if there is much evidence out there on which works best, from what i have read people have been quite successful with all three. if they are a proven pair i'd just let them be. introducing another girl may help but also may cause some issues. until recently i discovered that female peps can fight and be quite aggressive and one of my girls was ripped apart very very bad, luckily i saw in time and put her in her own tank to heal which she recovered great. but i got lucky and saw her in time. so yeah just another thing to think about.
another thing i am trying for the first time when i trigger this time is adding extra mopani wood to soften the water and hopefully drop ph a little. i've read that softening the water like this is a trigger on its own.
hope this helps, keep us updated

Well i have tried curbys method and i havnt seen any action yet so if this doesnt work ill give them 4 or5 weeks and then try your method i might also get a hold of that driftwood you mentioned that sofens the water. Are peps generally alot harder to breed then regular bristlenose? And can i have a pair of normal or albinos in the same tank as the peps or will this lower the chances of the peps breeding?

I would just stop all triggering things for a few weeks. then give curby's

Yes, peppermints are a lot harder than common bristlenose to breed.

You can put the commons in with the peps but they may fight and it will reduce the likelyhood of breeding.

Got my Peps as a breeding pair too. Took 5 months before they spawned. I don't see the point of triggering proven breeding pairs, once they've bred they will again. I'm on my second spawn and honestly I Havnt done anything to trigger them. They seem more happier in a tight fitting cave so that could help. I did notice a female hanging around the males cave moreso than usual before they spawned, so I'm guessing when your girl is ready you'll get some action. Due to my substrate my ph sits around 6 and because of the whitespot problem I had a few months back the temp is sitting at 28C. But it's not a general rule with ph and temp as others have had there Peps spawn in different conditions. Think another female is a good idea as they don't seem to breed as often as commons. Just fatten the girls up so they are bursting with eggs and they will have no other choice but lay lol