What do plecos eggs look like

For the most part, fish you purchase at the pet store are healthy enough for a home environment. But, these fish are not the best representatives of their species. Even if they do produce offspring, they may not be as healthy as the parent fish. Since Plecos and other egg layers can produce hundreds of viable eggs, you will also need to figure out how you will house them all.

If you have a male and female Bristlenose Pleco or want to try breeding them, the male will do most of the work for you. He will take care of the fertilized eggs and guard the fry until they are free swimming. You can tell when plecos are about to mate because the females will become heavier in the midsection as the eggs mature. Males will clear out a cave and stay in it to attract the female. After fertilization, the eggs will hatch in 6 — 10 days, and then become free swimming in about 4 days.

You can feed the fry infusorians , spirulina, or pre-manufactured fry food. They will also begin sucking at the walls of the tank and consume any algae they can find. In the wild , Bristlenose Plecos consume algae, driftwood, the remains of dead fish, and plants.

While they are considered primarily herbivores, they still need some animal flesh to replicate a natural diet. It is also very important to make sure the food sinks to the bottom of the tank or they will never find it.

You should also feed Plecos after dark. If the aquarium is too brightly lit, they will never come out to eat. After feeding Plecos vegetables, be sure to pick up any left overs the next morning. Vegetables will rot very quickly in the tank and cause ammonia surges. Once a week drop in some frozen or freeze dried blood worms.

If you have egg-heavy females in the tank, you might want to add some extra vegetables and blood worms. Finicky Fish Management — Unless the fish is coming down with Ich some fish will eat more , it is very likely that lack of appetite is caused by illness or a water chemistry problem. Start off by making sure the water chemistry is correct, and there are no toxins in the tank. Use one filter to every 10 gallons of water. This is also a good time to begin feeding medicated wafers. Make sure the wafers are safe for Plecos and do not contain salt.

As long as you can keep the fish eating, it will have a chance to fight off any infections that are trying to take hold. If the fish is not sick, try feeding different vegetables, or change to a different brand of food. Many hobbyists think the fish can get by on algae and never need additional food. They need fiber in their diet to aid digestion, and also meat and vegetables for additional nutrients and minerals. Now that I have the tank cycled and ready, my heater quit on me.

What is an optimal temp for the eggs? What about for the fry? And what is an acceptable range? Will I need to buy a new heater? Note that nobody has been picked on in the original tank, though there are some other small fish. Hi Nikki, Bristlenoses typically breed in the colder months anyway in the wild so your tank is most likely at the optimal temperature for them.

Anywhere between oF is fine for them. Is there any hope of them breeding when he is so aggressive? Do they both have plenty of hiding spaces, in addition to the cave to ensure they have their own space? If you follow the breeding advice in this article, including lowering the temperature of the tank, it may induce breeding behaviors.

Can you have just one female? Will she be happy by herself? Will she be healthy without laying eggs? We have other fishes and will also have 6 corydoras. Hi, I think my female longfin bristlenose is a killer, and was looking to see if others have had this sort of problem. I actually saw them fighting over a hiding spot, so I removed that particular hide, but placed others in the tank. One evening, I noticed that every place my albino swam to, the longfin followed. Then, my albino swam to the side of the tank, and was on the glass there.

It was then that I noticed a streak of blood on one of her fins. It looked bad, so I removed her to a bucket and added some fresh water and a bubbler, and some stress guard.

Unfortunately, she passed within a few hours. She was about 4 years old, I believe. I guess the longfin is going to be the only pleco in the tank for the remainder of her life, because I put a male in there, thinking a male would be alright, and I had to move him from another tank, but she was aggressive with him, too.

Hi Karen, unfortunately even when you buy a more peaceful fish species, there will be the odd one who is aggressive. It all comes down to the exact fish and their temperament. Hello, im new to keeping a tank and i have 5 guppies and a little bristlenose catfish hes a baby and bareley 2. When i bought him i asked what we should feed him and the person at the aquarium said fish flakes would be fine.

But whenever i try and feed him all the guppys eat the food before its able to sink to the bottom to him. He never seems to go for food and try and get it and just stays at the bottom. Ive tryed many methods of feeding him like putting him in a big plastic container, filling it with the tank water and putting some flakes in there. I also tried cucumber but he dosebt eat that either.

He may not be eating out of shock from moving to the plastic container but im not sure what to do. Hi Eamonn, have you tried algae wafers? Hi just wondering could you put a bristlenose in a nursery tank to help keep it clean while guppy and molly fry and growing. We had unexpected babies after having two plecos in the same tank for 6 months. Its litres so there was no chance of catching them and they all disappeared soon, having large gouramis and mollies in there.

A month later 3 started emerging that must have survived because they were about an inch long! Hi, I have some bristlenoses and they have just started to breed, the male is in a cave with the second clutch of egged. My question is will he come out to eat at all? Hi Amy, they normally stay in the cave with the eggs for days. Thank you so much for you helpful advice.

Was given two bristlenose from a friend who had unexpected babies in their tank. This evening we have spotted a few baby places in our tank. We had no intention of breeding them! One appears to be a bristle nose and is about 4 inches long, the other is what I would call a common plec and is about 10 inches long.

The babies are safely tucked into a corner of the tank, out of the reach of other fish and are between half and three quarters of an inch long.

Is this surprise unusual? I had a tank with 10 green tiger barb fish and two bristlenoses. The two grew really a lot, one is 27cm and the other 24cm long. Now my tiger barb fish started to disappear over night. I read that the bristlenoses are peaceful fish, but is it possible that they started eating their roomies? Many thanks, Robert. Hi Ahmad, we only suggest keeping one male per tank, unless you have plenty of hiding spaces. Newbie pleco owner here. I bought one albino bristle nose and one common black pleco with lighter stripes.

I never guessed that they could or would breed but alas, I have 2 clutches of fry. First batch produced five. They are eating tons, I add algae tabs and carnivore tabs as they need. What do I do with all of these mixed breed fish? Hi Judy, your tank is way too small for those fish. They should really be in a 30 or 40 gallon tank.

I currently have one half moon male betta fish I want to get a female bristle since I just moved my betta to a bigger tank to keep the tank clean. Hi Misha, you could try getting another fish in a tank just next to him and watch to see if he flares, however the only true way to tell will be to add another fish. Just make sure you have another tank on standby.

I have four tanks three of which breed albino long-finned bushy nose plecos. The mama and papa are in a gallon tank. When my babies are big enough I take them to the pet store to trade for dog food. My plecos support my dogs. They are the most beautiful things. They remind me of mermaids. My albino has bred with a camo pleco and I get some really interesting variations color-wise.

I feed them wafers and bloodworms and a good quality fish food. When the babies are born, I suck them out with a sucker and put them into the smaller tank to let them grow. Sometimes they get up into my filter but as I clean my tanks regularly I just strain the water through a net and put them back in the aquarium.

They seem to do fine. Not sure how long they breed so I decided to keep one of the most beautiful long-finned plecos and a hearty male in my other tank. For an novice, I have had pretty good luck. They are a very happy and healthy couple, the only issue i have with them is that they wont stop breading, in the 12 months they have been together they have bread on average once every 2 months, i have been struggling to provide homes for the babies.

I have a brown bristlenose pleco and an albino, had them for over 6 months maybe a year, and one day the Male brown was in the middle of the tank on the rocks and I noticed something orange under him. Then I realized it was a clutch of eggs! So I thought, I wonder why she laid them on the rocks? They both have their own separate caves where they hide most of the time.

So I tried getting a cave to put them in while he was away I scared him I guess and I carefully moved the egg clutch and some of the rocks underneath, they were so light and airy, kept floating away, but I finally got them settled and I walked away and he was back looking over the place they had been and finally finding them in the cave.

He made a big show of fanning and chasing other visitors then seemed to settle down, but after coming back by in about an hour he had moved them out of the cave! So I thought, what is the problem? I was back a couple of hours later and he had moved them next to his cave!

After another couple hours he had them right back where they were to begin with! So I let him alone! He was taking care of them and I figured I see what happened. I checked on them in the morning and there he was still hovering and fanning but out in the open!

That afternoon they started hatching, within 2 hours it seemed they were done and most of them on the glass next to where they hatched! She hasn't moved by tonight I'll call it. How did the plants come and how did you plant them in the aquarium? They came in a small pot with some soft substrate around them. I buried it, but didn't remove the substrate ball until last night after removing it from the tank. This thread is leading me to believe maybe those came from inside that substrate Alternatively, is it possible that the pleco was ready to lay eggs when I got her 10 days ago, just now decided to do it, and I moved her in the middle of laying and disturbed that and stressed her out so much she died?

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When we came back, I was happy to see that most of the babies survived. The yolk sac is completely gone, and pleco babies grew to 1 cm in length. I have stopped feeding the tank with zucchini for now since it seems to cloud the water very quickly.

I can't use most fish food in this tank because the shrimp are very sensitive to copper. In the above video, you can see some of the babies attaching to the mother. The father is still vigilante over the babies, but now he no longer chases the mother away.