Pleco spawning!

[plecoman]

My hugh white female is laying eggs again. I'm going to have to rent out tank space somewhere. She reproduces faster than I can get rig of them!

[jon carman]

You might at some point want to cull a few/ or separate the breeders, the market around here is not that big and you will end being stuck with a couple hundred hungry plecos.

[plecoman]

Heard that!

[jeremyh81]

You may want to start emailing some mail-order/internet shops.

[angel]

Plecoman doesn't lose any of them either. He's got the cleanest, most consistent operation ever. He's gonna need a fish room just for plecos

[plecoman]

Now that's a thought! I'm gonna have to get my 55 gal. set up and put them all in there. Let them grow to about 2" or 3". They'll be easy to sex then. Then again, I may need a 125 for them! LOL.....

[plecoman]

The female was spawning last night for hours. This morning, when I looked in on them, I believe this is her largest batch yet. I put a rookie male in with her the other day and he is doing just fine so far. Fanning the eggs like a pro! I hope he didn't forget to fertilize! LOL..... ;D

[angel]

Well if he did forget, he'll remember next time! But the likelihood of him forgetting that part is very slim!! Congratulations Papa Plecoman

[jeremyh81]

I'm curious as to what the water parameters you have. Not very interested in breeding them, since you have the market covered. Just curious. Maybe you can post what you've learned in the Breeding Tips section.

[angel]

That would actually be an excellent idea, as you've had such success with them.

[plecoman]

I'm couldn't tell you for sure what has caused my success with the pleco's, but here is what I do. The water is kept clean. I do at least 1/3 water change and clean the gravel real good every week. The breeding tank doesn't have gravel in it, but the female is kept in my 46 gallon tank with the gravel in it, until she is ready to spawn. I also keep the water at 80 degrees on all my tanks. However, this is what I have always done even before I got the pleco's. I had my water checked the other day for the first time just out of curiosity. I have never checked it before then. The ph was around 7.4. The only negative was the hard water, but that doesn't seem to bother them at all. And they also do well in cichlid tanks, with the higher ph, according to what I've been told from several people. So to sum it up, I guess the main thing is to keep the tanks clean and at a constant temp. I hope this helped.

[angel]

Do you add anything to your water? Salt or anything else? And what do you feed them?

[plecoman]

I don't add anything to the tank at all. Of course, when I do the water change, I put stress coat/de-chlor in the water before I add it to the tank. I only use salt if I have a fish that looks stressed. When I first got the rams, they stressed out on me, so I added salt to the tank then. Of course it went away fast with the water change every week. I feed the pleco's spirulina flake, shrimp flake, and wafers. Sometimes I'll give them a treat of Zucchini too. They'll eat just about anything! I've never had any disease with them either! (Knock on wood!) LOL..... These are just hardy and healthy fish! I guess it does help to have a large female like mine, that produces massive batches of eggs! Of course females like her are few and far between.

[oneyoda]

How about trying to mail some out. I'm not that far, but far enough not to have the extra time to come that way. I'll talk to The two Riches (Oldsaltydog, and madreefer) They men. comming out in a couple weeks. If not would you try a mail order? More than willing to pay!

[plecoman]

I have never mailed any fish. In fact these pleco's are the first fish I've ever sold! My tanks were absolutely running over and I had to get rid of a bunch. With the weather as cold as it is, I'd be afraid they would die.