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Ancistrus
dolichopterus and Dianema urostriata:
How to Spawn Bushynose Plecostomus
and Flagtail Catfish
Ken
Brown
GPASI
Journal , Fall
1985
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In
the Fall of 1984, Sallie Boggs's work took her out of the state for
about a year, and knowing that I was interested in keeping and breeding
catfish, she was kind enough to share with me some six different types:
a pair of bushy-nosed plecostomus, four flagtail catfish,
six Corydoras habrosus, and several odd-ball corys.
Well, within two or three months, the C. habrosus had spawned
in typical cory fashion: single eggs, stuck to the glass sides of
a bare two-gallon tank, but that's another story. The bushy-noses
and flagtails I kept in separate tanks--the bushynose in a 15-gallon
tank, where they cleaned up any and all algae and all the whiteworms
and frozen brine shrimp I could give them. The huge male, about six
inches long, never left his bamboo cave (a 12-inch length of bamboo,
about two inches in diameter) except at night, and the female, about
three inches, stayed in her rock sanctuary.
The flagtails I separated into two different tanks, sexing them into
pairs as best I could. On the assumption that fat meant female and
thin, male, and that the first ray of the pectoral fins of the male
were thicker, I segregated one "pair" in a 10, the other
in a 20 long, both tanks bare bottom, but with rocks, flower pots,
etc. Both received their fair share of whiteworms and frozen brine
shrimp. Since I have spawned three species of Hoplosternum
catfish, thinking from the body shape that these were probably bubblenest
builders, I floated a yellow coffee can lid in each tank.
All winter long, nothing happened. In the spring, I took both the
bushy-noses and the flagtails to an outdoor pond. Six fish were put
into a pond that holds approximately two hundred gallons of water--very
green water, with all sorts of good live stuff, daphnia, mosquito
larvae, bloodworms, etc. I expected Nature to take its course and
in the fall when I drained the pond I would find hundreds of young
fish.
So OK, September comes and it's time for me to go fishing. Surprise.
No baby fish. Just the pair of bushy-noses and four flagtails. Disappointed?
Yes and no. Of course I was disappointed not to find baby fish, but
I was extremely happy to get the adults back, because the water temperature
had dropped to about 55 degrees F, and I had been concerned about
the effect of the cold on them. However, they were in great color!
Even the olive drab bushy-nose seemed more colorful than before, more
green than brown. You have to catch wild fish to appreciate their
color when you first net them.
Back into the fishroom with them. The bushy-noses went into a 10-gallon
tank by themselves with jots of floating plants--so many that the
tank was very dark. The flagtails went into my only available tank,
a 10-gallon that they had to share with an adult dwarf Hoplo. Both
tanks were bare except for rock caves. I placed a floating coffee
can lid in with the flagtails and a bamboo tube in with the bushy-nose
pair. I had used about 80 percent pond water in the two tanks.
In a few weeks I noticed the bushy-nose male guarding eggs in his
bamboo home. Soon I had baby bushy-nose sticking to the glass sides
of the aquarium.
I kept getting bubblenests under the coffee can lid in the flagtail
tank, but no eggs. The temperature in both tanks was 70 degrees. I
did not know for sure who was building the bubblenests--the flagtails
or the lone Hoplo. It was a small nest, no big deal. Maybe they felt
like spawning but had something better to do. I, however, had one
thing to do--get them into a larger tank and away from the Hoplo.
Then at least I might find out who had been building the bubblenests.
I transferred the four flagtails to a freshly set up 30-gallon bare
tank with lots of rock caves and the yellow coffee can lid. For about
a week they just laid around or hovered in one spot about halfway
up the tank. The way they were acting, I was concerned about their
health, since they didn't t seem very active. The temperature was
70 degrees, and it was good water, but I did a 50 percent water change,
cleaned the sponge filter, and raised the temperature to 80. A few
days later I had another poor excuse for a bubblenest, but on inspection
discovered about 200-250 amber colored eggs. The eggs were big--about
l/32 inch in diameter.
Now it was decision time: to let the male care for them or remove
the eggs and hatch them artificially? I didn't want to take a chance
that the fish would eat the eggs, so I floated a two-gallon bowl in
the 30 gallon tank, partially filled it with fresh water and the coffee
can lid with the eggs on it. I knew that they would hatch sooner at
80 degrees, and it was easier to maintain this higher temperature
by floating the bowl in the warmed 30-gallon tank. I made frequent
inspections to remove infertile eggs, and they started to hatch in
four and a half days.
It took two days for all the eggs to hatch, with some help. I used
gentle persuasion. With the tip of my finger, I would break the eggs
to help them hatch. This is a technique I have used on three different
species of Hoplos, and have done it hundreds of times with good results.
I believe the males do this in nature by mouthing the eggs as they
care for them.
To summarize my observations:
Bushy-nose plecostomus...
...need lots of the "right stuff" to eat, algae and live
critters
...spawn at 70 degrees F.
...neutral pH
...cave or tube to spawn in
...male guards and cleans eggs. I recommend leaving eggs with the
male (having had no luck in artificially hatching similarly spawning
Loricaria filamertosa)
...fry are hard to raise, high mortality rate experienced
...need dimly lit tank.
Flagtail catfish...
...need lots of live food
...something on which to build a bubblenest--like a yellow coffee
can lid
...to spawn, maintain at 70, then heavy water change and raise temperature
to 80 F.
..*neutral to alkaline pH
...fish about two years old.
Both fish received about 9 hours of artificial light and 15 hours
of dim light per day. |
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