Breeding and raising Peckoltia L278.
Originally I bought 8 L278 as 6cm juveniles 13th Feb, 2010. This is Australia and plecos are expensive. I paid $300 each for them.
They were quite sociable as far as plecos go and quite often I would see them out during the day. They were settling in well and feeding on Hikari algae wafers and cucumber. They also have an annoying habit of fading their colour when I look to closely at them and especially when I have a camera in my hand.
On 11th March I moved them out of their 3ft tank into a brand new 4ft. Moving all their gravel, under gravel filter, Otto 800lph internal filter and Eheim 2215 canister filter with them. I thought just 8 little fish in a 4ft x 18 x 18" would be fine especially since I moved all their old media and water in with them.
It was a disaster and I ended up losing 4 of them to ammonia and nitrites which I hadn't noticed as I was moving and setting up several other tanks to my new specialised fish room at the time.
Once I got the tank under control the remaining 4 juvies settled in well and loved their more spacious home. Four feet is quite a length try to pull surface debris to the canister intake so not long afterwards I added an Eheim pickup internal filter just to help circulate the current.
I would water change 20 to 25% once a week using rainwater and gravel vac whenever it looked like it needed it. The gravel itself was a buffer and most of the time the ph would sit on 6.5 or so.
After a while the gravel wasn't quite enough of a buffer and I lost a couple of rainbow fish (my tank water barometers) to low ph. It was about 5.5! I took out a little gravel and added more with crushed coral in it and a couple of hand sized pieces of coral to buffer.
Now the tank sits between 6.4 and 6.8ph depending on when I have last done a rainwater water change.
In early October I noticed quite a bit of activity around the caves and one pleco had his tail bitten quite badly.
I decided to pull them all out and try to sex them which as it turned out was quite easy. The three males all had hairy coarse tails to the touch and the one female didn't. Around the same time I cleaned the canister and added more purigen as a log I had in the tank was annoyingly turning my water brown constantly.
I also added Sera vilformo tabs and Sera Flora flake to the diet as well as the standard cucumber and Hikari algae wafers.
Tank temp throughout has always been between 26 and 28C or 79 to 82F.
I had a friend who needed a male for his females so I sold one of them and removed the other male from the tank to prevent more fighting. The most hairy male and the female were in the tank now alone apart from an old contradens male in a log, a couple of panda corydoras and the rainbow fish.
I noticed a fair bit of flitting about the males cave by the female but nothing seemed to come of it. Honestly I had stopped looking as I was sure I was putting them off.
To my surprise I saw a fry outside on the gravel on 1st December 2010. He still had quite a large egg sac and I was very quick to remove the rainbow fish from the tank as they were taking quite a hungry looking interest in it. I emptied the males log to find 34 fry which I estimate had hatched on the 28th November.
I put the fry in a fish cave fry saver and after their egg sacs had gone I fed the same foods I fed the adults only it was crushed for the babies.
A couple of days later a couple of the fry had died which I wasn't too concerned about as they were only babies but every day for about two weeks after I lost a couple. I tried baby brine shrimp as food and still a couple would die.
In the end I was left with 10 babies which I thought I would lose as well but what I did was stopped feeding bbs, stopped feeding sera vilformo and stopped crushing the hikari wafers. I also made sure I kept cucumber available to the fry at all times. I lost no more fry. Only when they were 3cm did I reintroduce the vilformo food and they loved it and didn't die.
By the time the 10 fry were 3.5cm I had more fry in dads log. It was the 11th of December and we were facing possible flooding in Lowood so I left them alone and just an eye on them this time until I was pretty sure their egg sacs had gone and they were almost ready for dad to let them go. I emptied the log and on the 18th of December and found 46 fry this time.
I released nine of the earlier fry to the parent tank and kept the littlest one back in the fry saver to teach the new ones to eat properly. This time I fed nothing but cucumber and flora veg flake for the first few days. After a week I dropped a whole hikari algae wafer or two in and now a few more weeks later they are on the sera vilformo as well.
I also add a little pinch of frozen daphnia and live micro worms which I have no idea if they eat but makes me feel good putting them in.
I haven't counted to see how many fry there are but I haven't seen any dead bodies so I presume they are all still in there hiding under their little bits of wood.
Today I noticed the female laying sideways in her log with a huge belly. Later on she was hanging around the males cave but as I had several water changes to do near the tank including theirs, she went back to her cave. I presume in the next few days she will lay again.
Originally I bought 8 L278 as 6cm juveniles 13th Feb, 2010. This is Australia and plecos are expensive. I paid $300 each for them.
They were quite sociable as far as plecos go and quite often I would see them out during the day. They were settling in well and feeding on Hikari algae wafers and cucumber. They also have an annoying habit of fading their colour when I look to closely at them and especially when I have a camera in my hand.
On 11th March I moved them out of their 3ft tank into a brand new 4ft. Moving all their gravel, under gravel filter, Otto 800lph internal filter and Eheim 2215 canister filter with them. I thought just 8 little fish in a 4ft x 18 x 18" would be fine especially since I moved all their old media and water in with them.
It was a disaster and I ended up losing 4 of them to ammonia and nitrites which I hadn't noticed as I was moving and setting up several other tanks to my new specialised fish room at the time.
Once I got the tank under control the remaining 4 juvies settled in well and loved their more spacious home. Four feet is quite a length try to pull surface debris to the canister intake so not long afterwards I added an Eheim pickup internal filter just to help circulate the current.
I would water change 20 to 25% once a week using rainwater and gravel vac whenever it looked like it needed it. The gravel itself was a buffer and most of the time the ph would sit on 6.5 or so.
After a while the gravel wasn't quite enough of a buffer and I lost a couple of rainbow fish (my tank water barometers) to low ph. It was about 5.5! I took out a little gravel and added more with crushed coral in it and a couple of hand sized pieces of coral to buffer.
Now the tank sits between 6.4 and 6.8ph depending on when I have last done a rainwater water change.
In early October I noticed quite a bit of activity around the caves and one pleco had his tail bitten quite badly.
I decided to pull them all out and try to sex them which as it turned out was quite easy. The three males all had hairy coarse tails to the touch and the one female didn't. Around the same time I cleaned the canister and added more purigen as a log I had in the tank was annoyingly turning my water brown constantly.
I also added Sera vilformo tabs and Sera Flora flake to the diet as well as the standard cucumber and Hikari algae wafers.
Tank temp throughout has always been between 26 and 28C or 79 to 82F.
I had a friend who needed a male for his females so I sold one of them and removed the other male from the tank to prevent more fighting. The most hairy male and the female were in the tank now alone apart from an old contradens male in a log, a couple of panda corydoras and the rainbow fish.
I noticed a fair bit of flitting about the males cave by the female but nothing seemed to come of it. Honestly I had stopped looking as I was sure I was putting them off.
To my surprise I saw a fry outside on the gravel on 1st December 2010. He still had quite a large egg sac and I was very quick to remove the rainbow fish from the tank as they were taking quite a hungry looking interest in it. I emptied the males log to find 34 fry which I estimate had hatched on the 28th November.
I put the fry in a fish cave fry saver and after their egg sacs had gone I fed the same foods I fed the adults only it was crushed for the babies.
A couple of days later a couple of the fry had died which I wasn't too concerned about as they were only babies but every day for about two weeks after I lost a couple. I tried baby brine shrimp as food and still a couple would die.
In the end I was left with 10 babies which I thought I would lose as well but what I did was stopped feeding bbs, stopped feeding sera vilformo and stopped crushing the hikari wafers. I also made sure I kept cucumber available to the fry at all times. I lost no more fry. Only when they were 3cm did I reintroduce the vilformo food and they loved it and didn't die.
By the time the 10 fry were 3.5cm I had more fry in dads log. It was the 11th of December and we were facing possible flooding in Lowood so I left them alone and just an eye on them this time until I was pretty sure their egg sacs had gone and they were almost ready for dad to let them go. I emptied the log and on the 18th of December and found 46 fry this time.
I released nine of the earlier fry to the parent tank and kept the littlest one back in the fry saver to teach the new ones to eat properly. This time I fed nothing but cucumber and flora veg flake for the first few days. After a week I dropped a whole hikari algae wafer or two in and now a few more weeks later they are on the sera vilformo as well.
I also add a little pinch of frozen daphnia and live micro worms which I have no idea if they eat but makes me feel good putting them in.
I haven't counted to see how many fry there are but I haven't seen any dead bodies so I presume they are all still in there hiding under their little bits of wood.
Today I noticed the female laying sideways in her log with a huge belly. Later on she was hanging around the males cave but as I had several water changes to do near the tank including theirs, she went back to her cave. I presume in the next few days she will lay again.
it didnt take them long to mature did it
