So a little planning goes a long way...

So I asked you all "What's best for breeders and fry?" in 'Bristlenose Issues' area on Nov 8th... since then I have done some tank redesign, added lots of caves from ideas some of you have shown or mentioned on here (coconut shells, terracotta pots cut and glued to clear acrylic bases and pvc pipes with gravel (aka camo) glued all over to weigh them down.

After adding caves, more plants, more driftwood, and letting ornaments get covered in stacks more algae for baby food, removing all the other fish so no-one will eat eggs...  

The new guy, a 9cm Marble s/f we call Aloyisius (pron: Alooishus) danced around with Cleopatra, a 7cm Albino l/f for a few hours.  Then I noticed her fins and tail that had been getting a little frayed, were rapidly not looking so good... so in 'The Pleco Hospital' I put details in the topic "Female seems to be developing 'stringy' fins and tail", thinking she might be getting fin rot or something scary and Chaase let me know that the males can get pretty rough and cause this too.

So it turns out that he is a total caveman - he must have dragged her around the whole tank that night cos she now has one pectoral fin on a vastly different angle to where it used to be.  

But that castle he had been hiding in had a bit of paint flaking off so I took it out to clean and see if we should maybe keep it out - turns out there was stacks of eggs up that tiny turret with him!



So as you can see, I carefully put them in the fry tank, in the same tank mum and dad (now known as Alo-patra) are in seeing as dad came out of the castle when it was removed from the water.  

And they don't waste any time... Alo-patra seem to be at it again - in the treasure chest!

Looks like roughly 50 eggs - with tails wagging madly.  Phew - at least I didn't hurt them when removing from the castle, I feel bad enough for their dad for taking them away accidently!

Will keep you posted with more photos and after reading Doug's e-book I look forward to seeing the ratio of l/f to s/f, marble to albino etc.  
Hey yeah - seeing as she was one of the Albino l/f's from Doug, does that make you a grandpa then Doug? (this must happen a lot considering how many bn's you bred!  

Huzzah!!!

Congratulations:)

Now, you wont know if you have LF babies for a couple of weeks, and I find albino babies are harder to keep alive,
In about a week when their egg sack has all gone, let them out into the tank with mum & dad & they will chug along

congrats

Congrats!
If Doug was at least a bit Italian, he might be Godgrandfather.
BTW, it's your fish, you can call it, spell and pronounce any way you want. But in case you meant Aloysius - it's Latin name with Germanic origin.

they just call me godfather

kaban wrote:

Congrats!
If Doug was at least a bit Italian, he might be Godgrandfather.
BTW, it's your fish, you can call it, spell and pronounce any way you want. But in case you meant Aloysius - it's Latin name with Germanic origin.

Thanks kaban - I was soooo super excited I threw in an extra vowel!

Yes Godfather.   I look after the children, but they do have to swim with the fishes...  

So all is going well so far in the fry tank.  Some have decided to sneak out thru the cracks and make their own way in the big tank (about 9 or 10 - which leaves about 50 in the fry tank), which I was a bit scared about with the fierce current and getting carried away down to the sump filter - but hey if they do then they will land on a massive sponge with lots of 'goodies' to eat so hopefully they won't get injured on the way.

Here's a photo I took this morning: 2 days after hatching. I reckon it looks like a Bristle-baby conga line!



This is the castle that the eggs were in - half way between the window and the top of the back turret!  If you look carefully you can see him there again: His head is in the window (bit dark to tell) but you can definitely see his tail thru the opening under the staircase.  He pops out now and then to entice Cleopatra again but she is too busy devouring a mass of food this week!



And here's another of some babies in the fry tank, starting to get a bit more colour and about 1mm longer than when they hatched.



Thanks for coming to check them out... will keep updating on colours, l/f s/f etc.

Chaase wrote:

Huzzah!!!

Congratulations:)

Now, you wont know if you  have LF babies for a couple of weeks, and I find albino babies are harder to keep alive,
In about a week when their egg sack has all gone, let them out into the tank with mum & dad & they will chug along

 Wonder why the albinos struggle? Another mystery. Well fingers crossed they do ok and hey its a great biology lesson for the kids too. One of them was reading Doug's ebook - the part about crossing two colours and fin lengths and what to expect from babies on average. Makes us all the more curious...

Another update - colour changing, yolk sac shrinking and tails getting longer.

They are now really plumping up in the body and have hardly any yolk sac left. A couple are getting interested in cucumber but most are happy with a little bit of the 'slime' on the fry trap walls.

Most of them are still in the fry trap, about 11 have been found in the main tank - little escapees!
There are only 3 that are pale, so I'm guessing this is the few that might be albino (from mum) and maybe the other 54 are going to be marble (like dad)?

We originally counted about 60 eggs so most have survived so far.





Sooo cute and wriggly!

awesome! I love it when they start to look like mini-bristlenoses

Yep, they definitely look like scale models now - but it looks like my hopes of a few albino replicas (from the l/f I bought from you) have been dashed this time

Here's some photos from this morning... (egg sacs gone and cucumber is getting devoured!)

https://i.servimg.com/u/f58/18/63/35/19/20131217.jpg

https://i.servimg.com/u/f58/18/63/35/19/20131218.jpg

Nearly time to go into the main tank (with the other 11 that escaped the fry trap!)

very nice to see the pics hope you will add more as they get bigger

Thanks loveL144. They are not the clearest pics but it's still cool to see such massive growth and development so quickly in these critters.

Here's an update as promised...
Day 8.



"Haven't we got cute little bellies!"

they are doing well I love them at between a week & 4 weeks old

Yeah they are so cute - with such a massive mouths compared to the bodies! I must admit I am a little sad that none look like they will be albinos like their mum. The few we thought might be, have developed pale markings. But we love them none the less.

Another update for you all, sorry for the delay but it was a very busy few days here.

Friday was day 10.  When putting new piece of cucumber in fry tank I found one baby had passed on   don't know why.

All the others are going mad for cucumber and eating a halved slice, about 2 inches long, EVERY 12-15 HOURS!  They really are growing well, all are about 1.5cm long (doubled in length since hatching).

As you can see here they make quick work of a meal. This is after about 10-12 hours and all they leave is the skin of the cucumber. I have also put a tiny piece of driftwood in the fry tank for them and they do sit on there a bit.


I also removed Cleopatra (mum) and swapped her for her sister Aphrodite.  Aloysius noticed her straight away and they 'danced' for hours.  He had been eating well (cucumber, zucchini and wafers) for at least a week so I knew he was healthy. Within a couple of days they had decided on a suitable cave (terracotta pot cut in half and siliconed onto a clear acrylic base) and he is fanning what looks like a clutch of double the eggs he had with his 'first wife'.  So it looks like there could be about 100 or so eggs in there.  Pretty good effort for this girls first batch of eggs - mind you we were extremely surprised to see so many for first timer Cleopatra too.
  


Well I will keep you informed on both batches of babies and when some are ready to move home I will post in the appropriate area.

So today is day 14 for these gorgeous little bubs. I can't tell differences in fin sizes yet (prob cos I haven't done this before) so as they get bigger we can gauge the ratio of s/f to l/f and post that info here.

Yesterday I did a gravel clean of the main tank (which annoyed the heck out of Aloysius (marble s/f dad) who is looking after a new family of fry in his terracotta pot cave. I was cleaning gravel about a foot away from cave entrance when he reversed right out and laid with his head at the doorway, glared at me, flared out his odontodes as if to say "bugger off - I don't want you vacuuming my babies", then went back inside and left his massive tail out the door flapping at me! Times like those you want a spy cam running full time to capture the attitude of these fish, they are so caring of their fry - some humans could learn a lot...

Anyway, after doing the gravel clean I let all the 2 week olds out of the fry saver. I had waited this long because the current in my tanks is quite strong and the risk of them being sucked/forced through the cracks in the filtration wall, then go thru a short but forceful water maze into the sump filter tank, was something I didn't want to take. Would have caused a lot of injuries/deaths.

So they are all out and about, I must say they are luuuuuuving cleaning the glass/plastic walls and the ornaments. Since putting their dad into this tank with their mum, I haven't cleaned the glass/ornaments on purpose so that a lot of algae/slime would build up for them all to feed on. I have continued with gravel cleaning to prevent ammonia hits and water test levels seem to be staying stable so that's a good sign.

Here's a photo taken from the right side of the tank, looking into the back half of it. You can see the air stone sending bubbles up the back wall (glass is painted black on the back) and you can just make out the shapes of about 15 babies cruising around, and the albino l/f on the gravel floor is their mum's sister. I had the lights turned up high for the photo otherwise you wouldn't see them at all. The rest of them are hiding in plants, under driftwood and in the shaded gravel areas at the front of the tank )which is heavily planted so they aren't scared when we walk past) so being darker it's hard to get a good photo of them there.



The new batch of fry in the cave with Aloysius protecting them, all seem to have hatched and are thrashing their little tails around! A good sign he has looked after them well, so we will keep you posted when they are out and about too.

Back in a few days with updates.   

G'day all.
Hope everyone had an enjoyable festive season so far.   

So here's the update:
Batch 1 are now enjoying their 24th day in the big tank. They are all about 2cm long and I can start to tell l/f from s/f **Looks like a 50/50 ratio so I'm real happy with that.

Batch 2 are now 11 days old and dad let them out of the cave when they were 8 days old.

The same dad and the mum from the first batch of fry have spawned again 2 days ago, but I found the clutch of eggs in another area of the tank about 5 hours after I caught them spawning so I gently netted the bundle and put it in the fry tank - which is netting for maximum water flow.

Here's a photo of the dad 'Aloysius' with a mixture of his babies from batch 1 and batch 2, all having their daily feed of cucumber.



Here's mum of Batch 1, and you can see the netting holding her eggs from Batch 3!




The mum from batch 2 is now tank mates with a different dad (he is the brother of dad in this thread). He had spawned with a s/f common, but only 6 eggs out of what looked like 50ish were actually fertilised so that was a little sad, but they hatched a couple of days ago so fingers crossed they do ok too.

Keep up the good work JULIE your doing a fantastic job   

Thanks Love L144,

All I'm doing is feeding and cleaning... they are happily 'doing the work' themselves.
I just feel lucky that they have chosen to make families while living with me and that I can hand their babies on to others to enjoy too.

  

keep up the good work!

Firstly I'm sorry it's been so long without an update but I've been unwell - reading computer screen was not an option! Thanks for your patience and thankyou to those who have left kind comments on this subject.

So now the oldest of the fry are 8 weeks. They measure 3.5cm from nose to tail tip on the long-fins, and just on 3cm for the short-fins. Here's a photo with their long-fin mum:



There have been 6 batches of eggs in the last two months - from a combination of 2 dads and 3 mums.  We now have around 200 babies in multiple tanks! I didn't think that the survival rate would be so high after reading what everyone had said about their own BN families.

***By the way, I was wondering if the marble babies develop their 'orange-redish' tones once they are much bigger? Half of these babies are very dark, like a common bn.  The other half are pale, but still patterned. None seem to look like dad's colourings yet.   

***Also I read in Doug's ebook and on this forum that it's best not to let them move home before they are about 3cm long.  Is that just the body length we are talking about or including the tail? I want to give some to a friend with multiple tanks but not sure what age/length would be safe to move?   

Thanks again for visiting my page and answering questions for me.
 

3cms total length including tail

Solid effort here mate!

Marbles are normally distinguishable by 2-3cms. the redish colour then slowly fades from there as they get older

Plecos look great. Keep up the good work.