Pleco Breeding rack

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
Hello peoples,
I am new to L pleco's, I have only kept bristle nose in the past in all my tanks, and just recently bred some Albino bristle nose after picking up a nice male from BigJohn. I now want to journey into the pleco hobby and try to breed L201's, L397's and possibly L007's. These are the pleco's I really like the patterns and colours.

I will be building everything from scratch to make sure I have the best possible environment for them and the easiest maintenance for me. So this first post is just some idea's I had on the setup and hopefully get back some suggestions from you guys before I start the building process.

So the idea is that I will have 2 to 4 breeding tanks and then a large grow out tank, I am considering the hamburg matten filter for each tank with a central air pump system to feed the turbo uplifts, possibly a small internal 800lph filter to increase the current if needed, but the turbo uplifts do provide a very good flow rate. I guess my tank sizes is what I am more concerned about as I was thinking that the height of the tank shouldn't play to big a role from bottom dwelling pleco's, So I would like to go with breeding tanks size of 2ftx2ftx1ft which I believe should be enough surface area for a breeding pair or trio, I don't want any more than a trio, Then the bottom tank will be a grow out tank of 4ftx2ftx1.5ft, just a little more height for more water volume for the grow outs, so the breeding tanks would be 108 litres each and the growout tank would be about 325 litres. so the breeding rack it self will be 3 tiers with the grow out on the bottom. What do you guys think about this type of setup and Filtration? will a 1ft high tank be enough? I wanted to keep the height down so it could be a manageable 3 tier rack. Each tank will be drilled half way down drain and fill for water changes by adding L shape pvc into the bulkhead inside the tank so it swivels, and a garden hose fitting on the outside bulkhead to connect a hose for drain and fill

All suggestions are welcome and tips on breeding these L's would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
So I have started drawing out a rack, made a couple of changes, decided to change the size of the tanks to 600x450x300(2ftx1.5ftx1ft) 81 litre's, I am thinking that is large enough for a pair, Also haven't decided if I should just do 2 more of these sizes or go the 4ftx1.5x1ft 162 litre's for the bottom tank, Will decided that before building the tanks. Anyway below is the first drawing of a stand to hold these tanks. The stand will only cost me $100 in material using 50x50x2.5mm RHS, I will fabricate and weld the stand using my tig welder.If someone can see a reason to use larger tanks please let me know, I am new to pleco's so I am not fully up to speed and what a breeding pair will need, Saying that the pleco's I want to breed don't get over 15cm, except the 007's





 

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
Just small update, have finally decided on tank size and rack, will go with the hamburg matten filter as no one has said it will be problem.. have include picture to get a overall size perspective of the rack and an idea how the matten filter will look, going for orange / brown colour background for something different from the normal black



 

danfishy84

Member
Feb 2, 2016
9
0
1
Queensland
Not a fan of the hat.....lol.
I currently use Hmf's with my L's, works a treat!
My mate has a four footer with two corner matten filters, he needed to set one sides flow much higher than the other or the mechanical filtration failed (it created a whirlpool of fecal matter in the middle of the tank) as the two currents fought.

I am also a fan of 201 and 397.
Good luck.
 

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
Are you using airlift for hmf or powerhead, and what size tanks do you run the hmf's? I am thinking of running airlift for hmf so I can run all from a single pump, but then I am also thinking I will get more volume with a powerhead, down fall for that is having to plug 6 powerheads in, I'm thinking the low powered 6watt 600 liter per hour ones, just would prefer airlift as it can be ran off a single device lp20 or lp40
 

danfishy84

Member
Feb 2, 2016
9
0
1
Queensland
I have some of both, airlift for breeders, powerhead for display. I find powerhead more visually appealing (amazing how many bubbles get introduced through airlift). I have only used them in tanks 3' and under. My mate runs 4' tanks.

I currently run about 19 HMF tanks. If you go the airlift route I would suggest two pumps not one. Attach it to a different power circuit and it makes for a good system redundancy. If your power board fails one still runs (at slower rate) If your diaphragm fails same deal.
 

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
Got my first group of Pleco's for the rack today, now I just need to find a female or a pair of L397's. Will be fun growing these guys out :)



 

Brengun

Global Moderators
Staff member
Apr 22, 2009
5,041
4
38
61
Burrum Heads, Queensland, Australia
I have found plecos like to breed in either the top tier or the bottom ones away from my prying eyes. Keep the middle ones for the grow outs as they are easy to access when catching fry to sell.
 

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
started with the Hamburg Mattern Filters today and painted back of tank, decided to go with black just incase my original colour doesn't turn out like I hoped..


I purchased the poret foam from newzealand and was delivered very quickly, it came in less than a week which is pretty good considering I live in Perth. Using the formular found at http://www.seriouslyfish.com/a-basic-guide-to-the-hamburger-mattenfilter/ I created an excel sheet to calculate what I would need, I wanted a 5 times water turn over per hour so I had to double double the matt size to keep with in the 5-10cm per minute flow rate through the mat. Normally it is suggested to use 2-3 water turn over per hour, but with the formular you can calculate exactly what you need to up the turn over.





Here is the equipment used.



I marked the outside of the tank where the glass used to hold the matt, and taped the inside for any excess silicone



Then I siliconed the glass into position



Test fitting the sponge



Plenty of room behind the sponge for heater and powerhead ect...



Then gave the background a coat of paint



Finshed the install of matt and background



I will update this topic when I get the electric equipment like powerheads and heater. Also have some photo's to add of the rack build.
 
Last edited:

danfishy84

Member
Feb 2, 2016
9
0
1
Queensland
What size PPI did you get?

What is your maintenance plan like? I have found that sometimes large volume water changes 50%+ will cause the sponge filter to give up some of it's held mud back into the tank, this has only ever been an issue on low PPI filters so far.
 

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
This poret foam is 20 ppi, not sure on the water change plan just yet until I actually stock the tanks, if 50% at once does start to give up some mud back into the tank, then I will do smaller more frequent changes to help prevent that. At the moment I was thinking 50% once a week water changes, but could split that up into 20-30% a couple of time a week instead.

Edit//
Just looking at the L007's photo I posted when I first got them about 3-4 months ago, Surprised how much they have grown in such a short period of time....
 
Last edited:

Departure

Member
Apr 30, 2016
13
0
1
Perth
Got this rack semi running, still need to do the hamburg filter on the 4ft tank, at the momment just running normal sponge on the 4ft but the 2ft ones are working out very good, will post some pictures when I get back home next week