L-270 log

setup



size: 20 gallon long

substrate: fine pea gravel--in my opinion, to beneficial optimize microbial growth, this is by and far the best tank liner)

decor: driftwood, anubias barteri, java moss

caves: made both from polished marble shingles with spacers attached to slate as a back cover, and standard slate rectangles

filtration: two self repaired filters from garage sales and the like. I couldn't tell you what brand, although both are HOBs and quite large

heating: initially a marineland 150 watt--have since switched to visitherm stealth

maintenance: filters and water simultaneously cleansed once every two weeks

tankmates: several, depending on the circumstance...usually, I'd toss in whatever I have at hand...these have included aspidoras spp., corydoras adolfoi, various pencilfish, assorted danios, inlecypris, etc. I feel it is important to have some sort of small, active bottom strata feeding fish to clean up after rather messy hypancistrus. Young fry work well for this, so once my colony started producing sufficient numbers of fry, I took out the callichthyids.


This tank was taken down and replaced with a simpler setup. This is not to say this particular setup did not work--quite the contrary. I have had more spawns in this particular layout than I did with my current version.


the fish


The tank housed two males, three females. They were fed a variety of things, but their dietary staple was a 50/50 high quality tetramin flake/ hikari carnivore pellet mixture. It is important to have some sort of commercially prepared foodstuff as the mainstay of the diet, as it is easy on the GI tract and provides complete nutrition. Homemade tropheus shrimp mix and blanched frozen broad beans were fed twice a week to provide a steady source of vegetable fiber. Siprulina tablets and vegetable flake were also administered on occasion, as well as commercially available frozen foods (mysis, carnivore mix, bbs, etc.) put through a food processor for easier digestibility for fry.


male


females in hospital tank


spawning

There was little in the way of triggering. They appeared to respond well to several days of large water changes. Eggs were laid two weeks following. Since then, they spawned once every two months or so--sometimes back to back. However, if this happened, I'd strip the male after the fry began to lose their egg sacs. I have experimented with temperature, and have found optimal fry development to occur at 82 F. This may be influenced by water conditions as well. I had a lot of problems with premature hatching leading to mass fry mortality at higher temps--however, this does not appear to be the norm, so I would take this analysis with many pinches of salt. Trapping is long with my pairs--about 3 days, give or take. Fry are fed peas mixed with spirulina and carnivore pellets--I have tried other foods and growth rate does not seem particularly affected. Any sort of mashed, easily digestible foodstuff should be fine.


trapping


fanning eggs


fry

Well done cup, very in depth.
What is the plant species to the top right in the tank shot?

Great breeding log cup :clap:

excellent, thanks Jon:yes:

substrate: fine pea gravel--in my opinion, to beneficial optimize microbial growth, this is by and far the best tank liner)

Click to expand...

Jon
Good article.

Do you use fine pea gravel in all your plec tanks.
I used to use it on my tanks until i started keeping plecs, as i always read that sand is better for keeping clean because detrius gets stuck between the pea gravel, which is not good for fry, so changed to sand.

I have been considering going back to using pea gravel, as i lose a lot of sand cleaning poo out of my tanks, and always seem to be buying bags of sand, and have been thinking of trying pea gravel again, as i think if you sypthon the gravel regularly, it can be kept clean.

My breeding tanksat home (all hypans) all have sand now, simply because, as you say, it is easy to maintain, whereas gravel needs deep vaccing once a month or so. All my tanks here are gravelled.

Unpolished gravel has the unique balance between surface area, cover, and circulation. Nitrifying activity is correlated with aerobic environments, and yet prefer dark environments (different papers have reported different things with this photophobic tendency, but it's not that important). Hence, optimal biofilm formation possibly occurs something like halfway through the substrate bed, by my best guess. Assuming this is untrue, large gravel still traps food better in high current environments, and allows aerated water to circulate and penetrate much deeper into the bed.

Hi all,
Another great post, I somehow missed these when they were first posted.
Rabbit, the plant with the big leaves is still an Anubias sp. the names are probably not valid but a large leaved form of "A. barteri", or possibly "A. heterophylla".

cheers DArrel

excellent thanks, love the fry photo

Thanks very helpful