L201 breeding log

lollies

New Member
Mar 29, 2013
4
0
1
Brisbane
Have read pretty much every single L201 breeding logs on this forum and they were extremely helpful. My L201s started to spawn for me last few month so hopefully this breeding log will be useful to other Ls lovers too!

24/2/2014, purchased two L201 females from Brengun, 8cm and 6cm.
21/3/2014, purchased two males from Victoria, around 8-9cm.
12/5/2014, purchased a L201 colony from Gumtree, seller stated 2 males 3 females but not 100% sure (might be 3m 2f). Bred before, sizes are 5cm, 5.5cm, 6cm, 6.5cm and 7cm.

Tank size: Settle them down in a divided 4ft tank (total water volume ~177L), tank section is 75cm x 44cm x 36cm.
Tank position: Top tier of 3 tier stand
Tank substrate: River sand gravel 2-3mm
Temperature: winter 28C, summer 28-30C. water change down to approx. 26C
pH: 7.2 to 7.4
TDS: 280-320
Filtration: Eheim 2217 (with macropore), sponge filter, otto 800lph.
Lighting: once a week while w/c, usually very dim/dark.
Foods:
Main diet is frozen blood worms probably 1/2- 1 cube for all of them.
supplement diet are hikari algae wafers, sera flora flake, sera viformo, new era pleco, hikari micro wafers, hikari sinking wafers and sera catfish chip.

Freq of feeding: everynight. Starve one night every 1-2 weeks.

water changes: 20-30% once a week, or sometime got lazy w/c every 2 weeks
Tank mates: a fighter fish, 2-3 escaped female guppies, cherry shrimps, pest snails.

Spawning record:
1st Spawn
16/10/2014 first time discovered eggs in the clay log (purely accidental). Think I was too late and only managed to save 5 eggs with only 3 fries hatched.
pH was 7.2, TDS was around 280.

2nd Spawn
27/10/2014 moderate thunderstorm in the arvo/evening. Quick 30% w/c, bring the temp down from 30C to 27C.
30/10/2014 confirmed male is on eggs again in clay log
1/11/2014 10 eggs from this spawn, all hatched.

3rd spawn
10/11/2014 suspicious male is on eggs again. Male decided to use bamboo log this time. (opening diameter 2.5cm)
12/11/2014 discovered 25+ eggs this time.
13/11/2014 2 hatched, other eggs still looking good and fresh.

All fries keep in fry saver. Feed Hikari wafers and Hikari flora flakes everynight.

Just a few info I learnt from my Ls:
1. pH and TDS doesn’t really matter. you can see I stop recording them after 1st spawn lol. Use tap water only. Clean water and keep your nitrates down as low as possible they will breed. I am pretty lazy so use macropore in my filter = don’t have to do as much w/c.

2. Patient!!! Patient patient patient! They didn’t spawn for me after 7 months of keeping them. At the end I gave up trying to “stimulate†them to breed – for instance, black water extract and intensive small cold water change everyday for 5 days, didn’t work at all.
Just like many other breeding logs, leave them alone, keep your water clean and they will breed for you!

3. Think they might be seasonal breeders too, only breed during summer but not 100% sure.

4. For me, easier to spawn them as a colony with several males/females rather than just a pair.

5. Use different types of logs. I got slate rectangle caves, clay round logs, bamboo logs and D-shape clay logs in the tank. Their favourite is the bamboo log, although I am still not sure how they manage to fit through 2.5cm opening…the alpha male is 9cm and it’s a super tight fit!
I learnt this from my LF L144, super picky male, wont breed in slate rectangle cave no matter how eager the female is. Place a round clay log in and bang! got eggs the next day.

6. They really response to weather change esp storms, so keep an eye on your weather and do w/c when a storm is coming.

sorry I will add some pics of the tank set up + cute fries soon lol!

happy breeding!:lol:
 

Dis

Member
Feb 6, 2013
6
0
1
Ontario
Nice job. Looking forward to some pics or your setup. I hope to get a group of L201s in the near future. Congrats