Startin Up with so many questions.

Hi all its good to find such a great website with such a wealth of knowledge about a favourite fish of mine.
I am kinda new to the bn scene so my knowledge will probably be well short of most other members here.But ya gotta start somewhere I guess. Ill start by given a quick rundown of my experience with bn so far.
About two and a half years ago i set up my first tank (approx 300 litres) as a tetra community tank with assorted tetras and of course bristlenose. I bought 4 juvie browns and 4 juvie albinos and was given two peppermints as a bday gift. all of these fish now are a very healthy 80mm to 115mm long now. Unfortunately out of the 4 brown and 4 albinos there is only one positive female.
Although Im pretty sure both of the pepos are female.about a month ago i noticed some bn fry swimming around in the tank but because I noticed so late it was not long until my congo teras hed gobbled the lot down.Poor buggers!
So anyway I have just today set up a new tank( 80 litres) to try and give it another crack hopefully with better success this time.Im just a bit unsure of which male or males to put with my only definate female?
Basically I have 2 males that are bigger than the rest so I was goin to try them in the breeding tank together with the female and see how they go. They never fight with each other in the community tank so im guessing theyll be ok?
My eventual goal is to try breeding the pepos but obviously need a large male to go with the two girls first. So for now i will be more than happy to get the commons breeding. I am quite confidant in creating a good environment for these fish but my main querie would be what is the general idea of a good size for a breeding colony/setup? ie. howmany of each sex? I hope i didnt bore anyone to death there! thanks in advance

you are never going to bore us to death with such a good thread mate....
The worrying thing with your origanal setup is this quote...

Unfortunately out of the 4 brown and 4 albinos there is only one positive female.

When selecting your Alpha male...pick the biggest with the most bristle's..
As this will make the female think he has fry all around him and she will be drawn toward's him.....
Most poeple have great succes when they put trio's together...ie..
One nice mature bristley male plus 2 plump female's...

Also alot depend's on aquarium size when stocking male bn's...
With an 80 litre tank you could have 2 male's and 4 female's....that would be a good selection,,,but remember selecting the correct cave is vital as well as positioning...make sure if you have two male's put a cave either side of your tank as far away from each other...basicially create 2 area's in one tank..
on average a fully grown male common bn will reach 4 inch in size so select a cave that will fit him in and just about squeeze a female in....

Feeding is also vital...mainly for your female's...provide a variation of different veggie's on different days.......
Then follow the guide's and caresheet's on here for temperature's and ph levels and so on although must poeple have good luck at 26.5 degree's C...

Thats really as much advice as i can give your bn's should do the rest....

Good Luck axle........

Thanks heaps Curby with your quick reply. And you really confirmed just what I expected with the need for a few more females. Since puttin up this post I hav read through most of the topics on this site and checked out most pics and I hav learnt a lot from them. I also noticed that one lot of pics in here says that when sexing abns the male will always have a darker triangle shape on his head which the females dont. I have since studied and studied my fish and I suspect I could have an abn female to go with my brown one.She also has considerably less bristles than the rest(just arond the lips and two longer ones in the middle)I am tryin to find a shop or breeder in my area who will swap me some of my large males for a large female or two.They seem quite hard to come by in the shops though.Although it will be a bit hard to part with my original fish I think I really should cos otherwise there will be a tank full of males. And we wouldnt want that now. As soon as I work out how to post pics I will show you guys what i mean.Cheers

Good to see your making sense of it all axle and yes you are right about sexing ABN - try looking when your at the fish shop next time at the juvies , the males will have redder patch on their fore heads - this is dead give away because this patch is were the bristles will start to grow- Allthough less dominant males don't show this patch aswell as some and can still be mis_I.D as female.
J