L46 Zebra plec breeding log

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
4,271
0
36
Norfolk, UK
Hi, despite only having limited success with my zeb breeding, I thought I would give some details of what I have done in case it is useful to others.

background:

I bought a group of 8 young f1 zebs (about 6 months old) in 2007, of mixed parentage. I also bought 3 more of Scatz a year or so later and his were slightly larger than mine.
I raised them all in one tank, with a few cories etc and over the next year 2 died of unknown causes. towards the end of 2009 i noticed a few or them were scratched from fighting so realised the time had come to break up the group as I had waring males in there. So I moved them around, discovering thet most of them looked like males, and set up 6 in one tank and three in another so that the two largest males were not in the same tank. there was no significant fighting after that. I had no idea if i had any females.

Breeding tank:

The group of 6 are set up in a jewel 90 tank (guess that is 90 Litres) with a mix of different sized slate caves, a homemade clay, wood and a few plants.
the lid with light unit is removed and a sheet of perspex is over the top to help keep heat in. the tank is in a room with lots of daylight.
it is hard to get good photos because of poor light in the tank and reflections off the glass.
here is the tank from left and right.




it has an inbuilt jewel filter and an internal aquel UV filter, and a smart heater 300w.
temp is 30 C.
tds approx 200
ph approx 6.5
for water i sometimes used part treated tap and part RO, or i use RO with added minerals.

Breeding:

the alpha male chose the home made cave (which the hardest to see in as the sides aren't straight) it has a covered area next to it that the female often hides under.
(well I think its the female)



the tank is not really bare bottomed as there is a thin layer of sand.
but as i direct the outflow from the jewel pump down the fron of the tank it blows sand away from the middle.

anyway early this year they finally mated. I was not sure that the fanning was for eggs or just to attract teh female or show territory as he has tricked me on this lots of times. i finally realised he had eggs when he kicked out a group of wrigglers.
I put these in a fry saver, only one matured and he died later at about 5 weeks old.
Then I saw he had the female trapped, and more eggs were laid. he only managed to get two big enough to leave the cave. they were not all infertile but somehow they die -or he kills them , once they start to move about the cave.
Then sometimes i see dead ones kicked out, but I guess there are others I dont notice.
I can tell by his fanning that he is much more agitated once ther young can move a bit.

once the young leave the cave to eat and explore they often visit dad from time to time.

here you can see he has new eggs (look under his right side for pale yellow) and he also has youngster showing his tail on his left!



I have managed to catch a few of the young and move them into another tank with Bn fry
they hide a lot but come out to eat when i put food in.


other notes:

tank mates - some panda cory and sterbai cory

food - mainly tetra prima, brineshrimp pellets, algae wafers, flakes and peas
for the fry I also add micro worms and ZX100 fry food.

I have a couple of short videos too
http://plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6319
 

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
4,271
0
36
Norfolk, UK
Thanks Irene,

are you able to add diet, water params & Water Change notes?
sorry i did put the basics, what more did you want to know?

I dont do large w/c, I only do one bucket every other day just occasionally do two buckets. I was adding cool water before they bred, now I add warm water because there are some young in the tank.

maybe once a month I try a prawn defrosted but they dont eat much of it.
i dont use frozen blodd worm.
 

psionic001

Member
Jul 2, 2009
66
1
8
Sydney
Thanks Irene,

I found that when I add warm water it's very hard as some of it has come from the hot water tank. When I stopped adding warm water, my fish (L134) started to breed. It's nice to see that you didn't use a trigger as such like a large cool water change to get them going.

It's interesting to see that they took algae wafers too, or maybe those greedy cory's pinched them.

With the microworm, were they just added to the main tank, or were the babies eventually fed in a fry raiser?

I'll "go the raw prawn" with mine too & see if they like it. A bit of Aussie slang for you :)

thanks

Matt


sorry i did put the basics, what more did you want to know?

I dont do large w/c, I only do one bucket every other day just occasionally do two buckets. I was adding cool water before they bred, now I add warm water because there are some young in the tank.

maybe once a month I try a prawn defrosted but they dont eat much of it.
i dont use frozen blodd worm.
 

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
4,271
0
36
Norfolk, UK
Hi, no i did not raise them in fry saver. some of the fry are in adults tank and some that i managed to catch without too much disturbance I have moved into my 4ft tank where Ihave LF BNs breeding, so it gets fry food in there too.
I dont use hot water from hot tank as I know it can get a lot of copper in it from the hot strorage tank. I boil a kettled of filtered tap water and add to my cold bucket of RO and that makes it to about the right temp or a degree cooler but not enough to shock any babies in the adult tank.
 

viperss01

Member
Jun 20, 2012
10
0
1
Fla, USA
Hello guys , Not sure if anyone still reads these but here goes. I have a few questions about the L046 Zebra plecos. I recently got the chance to get a few of these cute ltl guys and was wondering if it is worth trying to breed these guys ,i understand they take a while to Mature .Atm i have a 160 us gallon community tank Angle fish Bala Sharks and spotted cats mainly, 55us gal Planted tank with Bristle nosed plecos , and a 55 Us gal with Bristle nosed plecos and Angle fish. Oldest angle is 6 yeas old and 1 common Pleco is 14in and around 6 year old.

.Any advice on finding different breeders and how many from each should i get ? how large should the community be of What ratio .?
 

Irene0100

UK Support Team
May 14, 2009
4,271
0
36
Norfolk, UK
Well you can breed from a pair or a trio but often 5-10 is what most people use i think. usually more female than male, if you can get them and if you can sex them lol!!!
I had a trio m 2f breeding but they had bred before. for new breedng group I had about 6. but also depends on size of tank etc. they generally need to be 3 or 4 years old.
The male in the pic above was not the best of fathers and never raised a lot of young, I think he would cull them once hatched. but at end of last year 2011, another male fought with this alpha and both quite damaged, the newcomer won. the old one i removed to qt and when better put in tank with 2 females, and he did breed again a couple of times (before I lost them all 3 due to heater failure). the new male is doing better and raising about 6 or 7 each month . he is on new eggs now that were laid yesterday.
I can tell its a different male because the tail pattern is different.
if you look carefully at the one above in his cave you will see like a white spot at top of tail and the stripes on lower half on tail change direction, where as the new alph amle has straight stripes