Bristle Nose - A journey (56K warning)

[mcloughlin2]

Hi

Due to my recent love for catfish I acquired myself a large group of common bristle nose (ancistrus sp3).

My large group is spread out over 2 different tanks.

Tank 1

Is a 2x18x18 tank
I run a 700L internal filter, a corner box filter and a hand on the back type filter on this tank.

PH is stable at 6.5-7.0 and temp is set at 24C.
This tank consists of numerous caves including terracotta pots, bamboo tubes, and pieces of slate.

It has a thin layer of sand on the bottom as I believe it looks far better then gravel and makes it impossible for fry to get stuck underneath it. I feed my bristle nose zucchini, cucumber and peas. If I have any I will sometimes feed a cube of frozen bloodworms to add some protein to the diet.

The breeding group consists of:

1 Large male @ 12-14cm
4 Large females @ 10-13cm
2 Smaller Female Albino Bristle nose @ 6-7cm

Tank 2

Is a 4x14x20 55G tank which has a 1500L canister filter running on it, and soon to be some power heads.

I have pool filter sand as my substance, which I will convert to sand next opportunity I get for easier maintenance. I use terracotta pots as caves in this tank with some large Amazon swords to provide some shaded areas in the tank.

The group in this tank has not breed as it only has 2 females.

All together I have 8 Males and 2 females in this tank all between 6-12cm.

I keep several bloodlines in my group to try to produce the best quality fry possible. 1 Bloodline was sourced from QLD, another from a guy near me, some are the offspring of the two bloodlines mentioned already and I have 2 other lines from around NSW.

I have only had the new breeders for a month and I already have had one spawning. The spawning occurred in the 2x18x18 tank. I had up to 4 females lay eggs with the one male! I’m still not certain as to what factors influenced the spawn as the day prior to the first signs of breeding I did a 10% Water change with cooler water, there was a fair bit of rain and I accidentally unplugged my heater!

The first signs of breeding I witnessed were the male frantically swimming in and out of his bamboo tube. He would swim out and fan his fins and swim back in. However I believe the females make the first move as earlier that day I witnessed some females sitting near the male’s log.

The actually spawning process lasted 5 nights and 4 days. The first night no eggs were laid. I did notice the male had a female trapped in the cave but it wasn’t until the next day that any eggs were laid.

Over the next 4 days the females went in and out laying eggs and “Courting” the male. After the spawning was done, about half the top wall of the tube was cover with eggs. There were several bunches of different sized eggs. Something I believe is because some females were larger and had held the eggs longer.

I noticed over the next few days that the male had knocked some eggs out when courting the females. I placed these in a filter and later into a DIY fry saver with an air stone close to the eggs to circulate the water.

On day 6 the first eggs started Hatching. Over the next day or 2 all eggs hatched and began wiggling in the fry saver and also the ones in with the male moved to the back of the tube.

After 4 days I moved all the babies except for 15-20 into a large fry saver. I left some fry with dad so he didn’t get too stressed out. After some quick counting it seemed like I had in excess of 100 fry. They stay in 3 different corners of the fry saver, which makes me wonder if they can tell the difference between different clutches of siblings. The fry now have developed a lot of the brown mottled colour and have lost almost all their egg sack.

There finally starting to venture out of there corners and I will start feeding boiled zucchini in a few days. In the mean time there is an abundance of algae in the fry saver. So far no fry have ventured out of the dads bamboo tube.

I have attached some pictures of the spawning, and also some of the fry taken on the 11/11/06. I will update this thread weekly with updates and pictures of the growing fry.

Hope this is of value,

Sam.