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View Full Version : My L240's have spawned!



CanadaPleco
01-23-2009, 02:32 PM
Well I wasn't expecting this so soon. Let me go over how this has all happened.

Back in March of 2008 I ordered around 10 of these beautiful fish from Oliver at BelowWater.com I have since moved around a bunch and did manage to loose a few.

In April of 2008 I bought a new house and they were all to themselves in a 125 gallon aquarium. It really did not have a ton of filteration on it. I was running an Eheim W/D 2229 and just a bunch of power heads for some good flow. I feed a few times a week, nothing major. Did water changes every few weeks at best. The tank was in a weird spot and it made water changes very aquard to do.

Now in Late November I moved this 125 gallon tank into and all the L240's into my fish room. Here the temp was around 80 degrees. Lots of caves and some big rocks and a bit of driftwood.

A week ago (Jan 15th) I moved 3 fish into a 90 gallon aquarium that is setup with 2 other 90's and a shared sump. There is a small power head blowing water infront of some of the caves, I put in 3 caves of various sizes and locations. Figured that might be enough for 1 male. When I moved these 3 fish into the 90 I just caught them, put them into a small container so I could photograph them and then dumped them right into the 90. No waiting for temps or anything to adjust. The water was maybe 2 degrees colder in the 90 at 77-78 degrees. They all seemed fine with this.

Jan 19th - I noticed I can only find 2 of the fish, Mr L240 has one of the ladies trapped in his cave. She is in here for 3-4 days.

Jan 23rd - I go to do my rounds in the fishroom, and look to see if she is still in the cave. NOPE, whats there is a huge ball of eggs. I am going to guess around 50-100 good sizd eggs. Hard to tell as teh cave is quite deep. I tried to photograph the eggs but could not get 1 picture, just too deep. And I did not want to scare Mr L240 into eating his eggs.

Now I just hope they are fertilized and the babies will hatch. He does not seem to be fanning nearly as much as Ancistrus Sp3 do, but I don't know anything about this family of fish and their parenthood.

I am hoping to get the fry out of his cave once they are nearly free swimming and have used up most of their egg sacs. I think the baby (1.5-2") peacock cichlids would love eating them. Now I have a few days to go and make a fry saver to put in the aquarium.

Ya ya, so happy this is my first fancy pleco spawning.

Rich

Katalyst
01-23-2009, 03:26 PM
Congrats on the spawn! Would you not be able to put the cave with the father in the fry saver now? That way you don't have to worry about the cichilds. Or even a put the cave in large critter keeper at the bottom of the tank. Just thinking out loud.

Either way congrats and fry list me please! Those would be worth the drive for. :D

CanadaPleco
01-23-2009, 03:53 PM
:) I have been speaking with Cristoffer in Sweden, he has spawned many of these species. And he said not to take them away for at least 14 days. So I think I am going to try to net the africans out of the tank.

So will wait for more info from him. I just went to the store to get the parts I need to make a fry saver though :) So exciting.

Katalyst
01-23-2009, 04:49 PM
I meant put Papa and the cave full of babies in the critter keeper but moving the other fish would be a heck of a lot easier.

Of course I say this as I am not the one's having to move them.

CanadaPleco
01-23-2009, 05:30 PM
Okay so from the Leporacanthicus expert I am told to leave the male as he is for 14 days, then move the cave and male into the fry saver. Remove the male and let the fry come out of the cave on their own.

He's also got quite the setup for a fry saver, it has a totally separate eheim filter attached to it for more water flow.

So I will be working on this over the next few days and getting it all ready for my babies.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f326/lutkeni/IMG_4524.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f326/lutkeni/Beskrivningavyngelkammare.jpg

Rush2112
01-23-2009, 08:52 PM
Great news Rich. I agree that keeping the fry with dad for 2 weeks is best. Hopefully you will be able to shine a small flashlight in the cave soon to see some wigglers. Dad will freak out and try to hide them so I wouldn't do it too often.

Katalyst
01-23-2009, 10:47 PM
Rich can you post more pictures of your fry saver? I'd love to try to make something simliar! (if you don't mind me copying your idea of course)

CanadaPleco
01-23-2009, 11:13 PM
not my plan. I am copying from christoffer. But I will take a bunch of pics of mine

cichlidguy
01-24-2009, 12:34 AM
Congrats on the spawn Rich, you must be stoked!

John

jackson
01-24-2009, 03:19 PM
Very nice Bro :)

have you been putting RO water in there or just regular water changes?

CanadaPleco
01-24-2009, 03:29 PM
No R/O I have not hooked that thing up in a long long time.

My water readings are as follows:

GH 460mg/l or 25.7 °dGH
KH 70mg/l or 3.9 °dKH
PH 7.6

A pic of the cave with dad fanning
http://www.canadapleco.com/members/canadapleco-albums-l240-spawn-picture28-dad-cave-all-eggs.jpg

blossom112
01-24-2009, 09:06 PM
beautifull and congrats !!!!!!!!!!

Katalyst
01-28-2009, 02:06 PM
Any update? How is your fry saver coming along Rich?

CanadaPleco
01-28-2009, 02:15 PM
Fry saver is all built and ready to go, I have some MTS snails in there to eat up any stuff they miss. I took a peak into the cave last night and there aren't as many eggs as I first assumed that is for sure. None are hatched yet either. Will check again in a few days.

Katalyst
01-28-2009, 06:47 PM
That's neat, I'm going to try a similar idea and use a small cannister turtle filter.

CanadaPleco
01-29-2009, 05:57 PM
Well the male ate all the eggs sometime last night :(

Time to start over again.

Hopefully the next time around he wont eat them all up, either that or I steal them from him.

jackson
01-29-2009, 06:38 PM
That sucks maybe they were no good?