New spawner!

Hello. I posted in here a while back as a new member with intention to breed our BNs. Our female BN then seemed to be getting pretty big and we gained hope but with no outcome.

Well she continued to grow (in the tummy) whilst our other plecos remained a good normal weight. They are fed a good diet with plenty of vegetables. On Saturday night I saw our female BN who looked like she had swallowed a marble, she came onto the glass and I made a comment about the size of her. No sooner had I made the comment she swam off suddenly and into the male BNs cave (a lump of bogbood which he seems to have dug underneath!) We watched excitedly as this would be their first time and he let her straight in! Normally no one goes near his cave! She stayed in their for five minutes or so. She came out and he was right behind her, it was like a little ritual - making her go back in. They stayed in their again together for another five minutes before she emerged again. The same 'ritual' occured and she returned to the cave for at least another five minutes. She emerged and went on her way. Her stomach still swollen! - did they not achieve anything in this time?! Not long after, she attached herself to the glass briefly, stomach still swollen but her lady parts did look swollen and white. The male seemed unsettled and restless in his cave but was not coming out! Ten minutes later we looked again, she had completly deflated! Her lady parts still white and swollen and he remained in his cave but more settled - fanning away! Now to see that he doesn't leave his post! Monday now and he still hasn't left but fanning away. She is eating and not sunken belly anymore and lady parts back to normal.

We have 5 male guppies, 7 rummynose, 5 endlers, bulldog pleco, butterfly pleco, 2 female BN and 1 male BN in that tank.

Are the BN babies going to be okay or is it likely they will get eaten when they begin to emerge. Should we take the eggs and him out - we would prefer not to. We don't want to disturb him if it can be helped or put him off bredding again.

Tights over fitlers. Its a 3ft with hiding places. Should we put them in another tank though when we see then and set a trap for the babies or do you think they will be okay without being eaten?

We didn't really have to do much if anything in our tank to get them to breed but it is their first time. Our tank is well filtered and a good flow of water.

Is it five days for them to hatch? How big will they be when they emerge? Are they safe in there - we have no female guppies. How long til we see them? Any further advice.

Many thanks

Helen - hopefully now a BN grandmother!

As this is your first batch I am guessing you want to save them all! This is the predicament I was just in. I believe some of mine were eaten by swordtails, and I know others have said theirs were eaten by guppies. That being said if you have lots of hiding places, keep the other fish well fed, and you have a lot if babies then some will survive.

I waited 10 days after the eggs were laid to move them.

Good luck and congrats!!

With lots of hiding, esp live plants (hornwort or other floating leafy plants you can move about and arrange as needed work well) and driftwood, rocks, etc. they should be ok. The plecos won't bother them, and I doubt rummynose or endlers will either. Male guppies, particularly fancy ones, aren't terribly large or quick, it's the larger, hungrier females that cause more trouble.
I definitely wouldn't try to move them now, the male would probably abandon the eggs and it doesn't sound like they are in the sort of cave that they could be moved anyway.
I would leave them where they are, the male will protect them just fine and once they emerge trying to catch and move them would probably cause more injuries than leaving them in there.
They are good size (for fry) when they emerge, but delicate. If you notice any of your other fish actually catching and killing/eating any, I'd move those fish temporarily till the baby BN gain some size. They grow fairly quick.

Congratulations on the eggs, leave them to Dad, he knows what to do!

Sarah

Yes it would be good to keep them all and we will avoid moving them for as long as possible. It will be five days tomorow. There are lots of plants, hidy holes and 5 pieces of bogwood. Hopefully our males will behave! It's only the guppies I am concerned about really and hoping the fry will be biggerthan bite size when the emerge. Thank you - Dad is still will them

vizslahel wrote:

Yes it would be good to keep them all and we will avoid moving them for as long as possible. It will be five days tomorow. There are lots of plants, hidy holes and 5 pieces of bogwood. Hopefully our males will behave! It's only the guppies I am concerned about really and hoping the fry will be biggerthan bite size when the emerge. Thank you - Dad is still will them

Tank set-up sounds excellent, and you should have wigglers soon (but resist the urge to peek, it upsets the Dads a lot). Yes, the male guppies would be my only concern, but in my experience the boys are way more interested in sex, even in a bachelor situation, than in serious hunting. Keep them well fed, perhaps some frozen brine shrimp or another treat added in, and feed them small meals several times a day. The guppies will be interested in the vegetables you feed the baby BN, so you might start giving them a couple smushed shelled frozen peas at the opposite end of the tank (if you don't already).

Congrats again, Sarah

Thank you. No wigglers yet but only the 6th day. We haven't looked or disturbed him and he is still in there and fanning. Hopefully we may see some movement soon?! Do the females feed themselves up again over 3-6 weeks? - obviously not all will but is that a good time scale?

Congrats on the eggs! I think your ok. The eggs should hatch anytime now. My big albino trio spawn just a few weeks ago, and the eggs hatched on valentines day, only 3days after being laid. 6-7 days is normal, so don't freak out! So, my babies hatched into wiggles after three days, and when they did hatch I kept seeing one or two come flying out of the cave, and my rams would eat them. A new buddy of mine breeds bn as his bread and butter, and what he does, is he kicks the babies out of the cave as soon as they hatch. The only fish in his tanks are the parent Plecos, but when I saw my rams eating any of the escaped babies, I kicked the rest of the babies out, still with the egg sac attached, and housed them in a floating breeder inside the same tank until they absorbed their egg sac. Once the sacs were gone, I moved them to a grow out tank. I have only lost 2 of the babies since valentines day, not including the ones that were eaten when they got out of the males tube. I have about 130-140 fry that are doing great, and my two adult females are gravid again, and any day now I will have another batch of eggs.

So after some waiting and a definate spawing we now have wrigglers!

12 days after spawing and we were deliberating whether they could be infertile eggs as we still had seen no signs of any wrigglers... no sooner had I said it, I spotted one on the side of the tank! Then another, and another and another and they were everywhere! Filters out and checked with a few found, all survivers though! All removed and put back in tank with tights now over the filters. Some had even got into the water flow pipe.. somehow against the fast flowing water! All safely back in the tank. Green tinned beans (unsalted) in there now and other fish aren't touching them. They are just under 1cm in length! About 16 definates counted but male BN is still in cave with who-knows how many more!

Thank you all for your comments so far!

Hi,Congratulations on the fry

The little babies get everywhere as you have found out.Might be a good idea to also put some cucumber in for them.I bet there are a lot more still in the cave and will be out soon.


Bristlenoses

Yes, they have only been out today but we have found them everywhere. The adults get cucumber a few times a week so hopefully the fry will take a liking to that too. They currently seem to just want to stay on the glass, or on the filter for that matter! Yes, I think you're right as he is still fanning anything that goes near.

Thank you

Congratulations! Now the real fun starts.

The fry do have a yolk sac, that may be why your early escapees don't appear to be eating yet. As Bristlenoses said, make sure to keep food in the tank anyway, once they start eating they don't stop until they're breeding age!

Keep us posted, I too am betting Dad has a whole bunch more that haven't managed to get by him yet. Are your male guppies leaving them alone?

Sarah

They came out with no egg sacks attached so he kept them in well. We had to clean and dad was coming out so we took the chance to see that he only had 2 wigglers in there with him. Not a massive number but good enough!

How long should we keep tights on the filters. We over filter the tank which works well but the filters struggle a bit with tights on! Just wondering how fast do they grow and how long people generally leave filter tights on for.

Many thanks

vizslahel wrote:

They came out with no egg sacks attached so he kept them in well. We had to clean and dad was coming out so we took the chance to see that he only had 2 wigglers in there with him. Not a massive number but good enough!

How long should we keep tights on the filters. We over filter the tank which works well but the filters struggle a bit with tights on! Just wondering how fast do they grow and how long people generally leave filter tights on for.

Many thanks

Rather than tights, I use fairly large squares of med-lrg pore sponge over my intakes. I cut a hole using sharp pointed tip scissors, just large enough so it slides tightly over the intake screen. I keep them on all the time, because I always have little ones, and they also act as additional bio-filters. They won't clog as quickly, you just have to squeeze them out regularly like any other sponge filter.
Rather than making them from scratch, if you have any unused sponge filters, you can usually adapt them to function as prefilters over the intakes using rubber bands to hold them in place.
The fry don't grow as quickly as some other fish species. You will need to keep the intakes covered for a while, and unless you separate the pair you may have a new batch before you know it. That's why I prefer sponge prefilters over other methods. The fry love to hang out and feed on them as well.

Sarah

Yep I use sponges too. I cut the largest sponge fluval sells in half and then slice a small hole for the intake.