Breeding albino Bristlenoses help?..

I have been breeding common Bristlenoses with no troubles at all but am finding it hard to get my albinos to breed. Are they normally harder to get going or is there certain things I need to do differently?

To get my commons breeding I have been doing a cool water change, adding a bit of salt and feeding bloodworm and hikari algae wafers.

The albino male and two females are in a 3 ft tank with the temp at 23 degrees Celsius.

Any helpful tips would be much appreciated

Hey,

albino's bn's are not usually harder to breed, from experience, my longfin albino bn's fry seem more sensitive to raise though.

Going back to the triggering of the bristlenose, normally they will breed simply when they are ready as long as the water parameters are in check. To assist them a water change with cooler fresh water will help but i'm finding its not necessary as my commons just breed when the females are nice and gravid.

With the temperature I would suggest turning it up to 24 degrees as bn's prefer warmer water (24-26 degrees seems to be the best range)

Can I ask what the salt is added for? just because salt additions are normally avoided in a bn's tank as it burns/irritates the scales. using salt in the tank to assist with white spot was some fantastic advice I got from a pet store... (since looking into it a bit more i stopped right away)


So basically I would suggest keep up the weekly Wc's and wait till they breed. (its the simplest method )

I have bred commons before and am currently breeding albinos. Keep up the cool waterchanges, I keep regular temps around 26c, adding extra salt is not necessary and I use maybe a grain of salt per gallon as it is quite harmful to plecos.

This info is copied directly from one of the below links.

Plecos are from freshwater rivers and streams.
They encounter no aquarium salt in their natural environment. They encounter very low concentrations of salts of any kind.
Salt is not a needed or desired chemical for plecos. By putting salt in the water you are forcing the plecos renal system to work harder to excrete the salt.

Is salt safe for a treatment? Yes
Is salt safe for long term health of plecos? No
Can plecos tolerate salt short term? Yes
Can plecos tolerate salt long term? Until their renal system fails.
Can plecos thrive in salty water? No
Tolerate and thrive are different words and worlds apart.

These articles convinced me to dramatically lower the salt in my aquariums and my fry are growing at double the rate as before.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32126

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/salt

I have never fed them bloodworms but for me Hikari wafers and Wardley Algae Discs(all vegetable) are a staple along with a variety of fresh vegetables.

Once I started them they have been on autopilot and need no coaxing.

I would guess that what you really need to do is be patient, raise the temp, and lwer the salt. This just what works for me so take from it what you will

Just an addition as I sounded very un-inspired about the breeding

Check out the search option to find similar posts on here as there are many many different methods of triggering bn's...

If the water parameters in the tank are good and the female is gravid a cool water change of 25-50% followed by a 10% the day after will give you a very high chance of triggering them. Also to increase the chances wait till a storm comes over and then do the Wc's as the low pressure front helps imitate the rainy season...

Good luck, and if nothing happens for a while they just wait

I only use a little bit of salt as rain has some salt content. I will keep up the water changes and see how I go. It has been pretty stormy lately in Adelaide so I should hopefully get something happening...

Thanks for the replys!

for the most part as long as my water parimitors are good and I keep my tank at about 76-78 Degrees F. I wait till my female start looking gravid and then I do a 60-75% wc, but when I do the water change the water going in is 72-74 degrees F and with in a week or so she spawns in the cave and that is about every 3-4 weeks so I am doing water changes roughly every 2 weeks and washing out my filters every other day or two. I feed Alge wafers, cucumbers and Romaine Lettece to all my albinos

What are the signs of my females becoming gravid?

http://www.bristlenoseworld.com/search?mode=searchbox&search_keywords=gravid&show_results=topics

easiest way to explain would be for her belly to start rounding out to the sides more than rounding out from her underside. she will start hanging around the cave entrance more and the male will start chasing her short distances trying to lure her into the cave. once I start see some of the begining stages like her belly and hanging around the cave entrance alot I do the water change and if he hasnt started chasing before the wc he will shortly after. these are just some thing I look for and it has worked for me so far, but I am newer to raising bn than other fish. If you go to "Your Bristlenose Pictures" on the main page, Jeff has a picture of his female up there Gravid. my females belly dont ever get that big, but she usually only has about 70-80 eggs in her spawn. So Guys I know there are more signs to look for and Im not to sure what they are.

Here is a vid from early march which clearly shows how large my female gets before she drops her eggs. She was quite a bit smaller than she is now, approx 7cm but still dropped over 100 eggs. I believe it was her second batch, it's quite disturbing how large she gets

ok just an update, the male albino has been fanning a clump of eggs but im thinking they are no good as some look like a whitish colour...

just leave him be, It is normal for a few or part of the clutch not to be fertilised & go white. If you disturb him he will disown the eggs.

Almost every cluster of eggs i ever had over the last 38 yrs has always had some bad ones in it that turns white. one thing you can do to help slow the fungus down is not have any lite on the tank at all. i have known some people to tape paper around the tank to stop all lites from the tank.

Update- the male kicked the eggs so I separated the good from the bad which wasn't easy and now have 6 fry which I didn't expect to survive, but am super stoked!!