Beginner info.

I have been the proud owne or a Male Bristlenose for around the past 5 years. After hearing about a year ago that they were amongst the most likely species of catfish to be able breed I contacted my LFS and they promptly got me an adequately sourced female. Problem is that the female also turns out to be male, i made the mistake of taking their word for it and not doing adequate research. Now in my research i would like to setup a tank for the sole purpose of attempting to breed them with another tank if sucessfull for a rearing tank. My main question at present is say i manage to get a pair breeding in the new tank can another pair be added of a different species to get 2 species breeding at one or would that lead to fighting or cross-breeding? The tank i am planning to use is approx 110 litres (3ft long). I would be happy to try and spawn a pair in my community tank but i would imagine that the fry unless moved before hatching would not last too long as i have clownloaches, corys, danios etc which never give my live bearers fry a chance. Any thoughts would be much appreciated, i will try and get some pictures of my Bristlenoses (Homer & Malcom) shortly. Cheers guys. Darren

Hiya darren, firstly i can see no problems with mixing 2 species together and its highly unlikely that they will cross breed.
In my main tank i have ...
x 1 9inch L182 male
x 2 6-8 inch L182 females
x 1 male common
x 1 female common
x1 Albino common male
x 1 Albino common female...

Now i wouldnt say they never fight as they do now and again but its mainly over feeding time...
Ive provided plenty of caves for them so they get on quite well together...
The only problem i get is that my brown common male gets jelous of the albino male's cave so he trys to kick him out now and again..

So make sure you place your cave's very carefully...ie..dont put the entrance to a cave facing another entrance as the male will always be aware of this and can distract his attention away from spawning....
I normaly provide a cave per plec...and ebay will be a good source to get some decent slate cave's....

Try reading some of our threads in the breeding section and iam sure you will plenty of info to get you going...

Hope this helps cheers CuRbY........

High Darren, that's pretty much how I started with my B/N- in a 3ft tank. There was originally 3 fish -my 2 females and newly aquired male, the male lasted about a month and kicked the bucket.
( Re-think strategy) Righto a mate passed over 3 more fish -2 more females and tiny runty male, that gets me back to 5 fish. Next up a local lad was selling a pair ( which no one wanted) so I offered up $50 as they were both damn nice fish,
these fish were an extra female and "James Brown"- that brings me up to 7 fish( 3 more fish than 2 pair and still plenty of room in a 3ft tank). As soon as "JB" was added to the tank - wicked horizontal mumba action and they really haven't stopped .
In reply to question of mixed species - I soon added a colony of 5 pepps and still found minimal signs of aggression, all though the pepps are "still" yet to spawn for me .
In total 12 Ancistrus were in the tank and sharing with a decent sized L001 and some dither fish and the 3ftr still coped only with an internal power head.
I will add the pepps now have the 3ftr to themselves and the commons are in the new 5ftr with a considerably larger now L001.
I reckon you'd OK with 4 fish your talking about in a 3 ftr.
J

Thanks for in the info fellas, i will keep you updated on the progress. Just need to save a bit more cash and convince the missus that its a good idea. Thanks again. Darren

GoodLuck convincing her...