Breeding Bristlenose catfish?

I have a male and female bristlenose catfish and I want to know how do you breed them successfully.What do you feed the fry?What Ph do they required for breeding??

 

Slightly acidic. 6.5. A short pvc tube is used as spawning site. Fry will eat its yolk sac and then BBS and algae waffer can be given. I have read that lettuce can be given but i dont know how.(pulp or just straight up)

 

Remember that the female must be removed after the eggs are laid, the male must stay until free swimming.

 

My bristlenose fry is about 2 weeks old now. I did not notice there were eggs until I lifted the tunnel the male was in. What is did as I had to, cause they are in my discus tank. I bought a small tank about 40l put the same water of the big tank in the small tank and I removed father, tunnel and eggs in one shot to the new tank. Don't worry about the female, the male will chase her away and she will not dare come near the cave/tunnel where the eggs are.
My Ph is at about 6.8 and temp for them should be at about 28. I feed my fry all of prof's food that includes, the fine granulate powder protein, spirulina tablets, frozen clyclops, mysis and moina, and first time last night I added a waver as they are about 2cm long currently.
On how to breed them, just let nature take over, it will happen if the male likes the female. My male has been in my tank for about 8 months and female for about 4 months and they just did it.

Hope this helps somewhat and good luck.

 

@Laracroft will you let us know when your babies will go up for sale?? I am looking for some Bristlenoses.

 

Agreed!!!

 

Thanks.
What kind of ornaments must I put in the tank.
What size is best for a breeding tank?

 

O yes
And I want to know when are the fry free swimming

 

@hein24 I will let you know, it's still about 4 weeks away as they are only measuring +/- 2cm.

@Rooivlerkie you can put any ornament in your tank, as long as they can hide in it. You can put some pots in the tank thats has been halved, you can put in some pvc pipes (I personally don't like this)(I also make and sell slate caves if you are interested) anything really where they can hide and lay there eggs. Like I said, they were in my big discus tank and I did not want to stress the discus when it was time for those little babies to be caught and sold. Also the discus would have a feast on the little babies. So once the eggs were laid, I bought a 40L tank, added two filters and a heater. I took father, cave and eggs and dumped them in the 40L and all was 100%. So your tank does not need to be masive to accomodate them. If your fishes are in your main tank then remove them if you want to in a smaller breeding tank but otherwise you could just leave them in your main tank. But it will also depend on the other fishes you have in your tank, the fry could be eaten up before they are free swimming.

The fry will become free swimming once the yolk sac is finish. Mine still stayed in the cave for a day or two after the yolk sac was gone, after that they came out. The process will take between 3-5 days. Hope this helps a bit.

 

May I give some advice here.

When breeding bristenoses there is not need whatsoever to take away the females. I have bred literally hundreds of bristlenoses by keeping a male with two or three females in a tank that has no gravel, but had a number of logs some of which formed pretty large caves in which the male made his nest. The tank was strongly filtered and had a circular current in it. This similates the natural area in which they occur which is in rapids of fast flowing rivers. The logs are also essential because the bristlenoses actually need some wood as roughage in their diets. What would happen is that the male would spawn in his cave and chase the female away. However because he holds on to the eggs in a ball in his mouth he will never chase the female far away and damage her. He then looks after the baby fry for a couple of days and will continue to look after the small fishes as well. Eventually they start popping out everywhere and the females also do NOT eat them. He will after this spawn with the next female and eventually you have this massive colony of small bns. I would catch out the babies that were about 5 cm and sell them but I would leave them all together. Trevor Pleco mentioned that if you have a small number of youngsters of say 5 cm in a tank that they show aggression to one another. That is quite correct but in the group they are really peaceful. My advice when buying bns is also not to buy 2 or 3 but to buy ten, then you have no problems. I fed mine on granulates and flakes and also baby marrows. When the fishes have small fry I also fed freshly hatched brine shrimps.

Folks, the less manipulation you expose these fishes to the better so all this business of moving away females and removing males is all unnecessary. If you follow how they do things in nature, that is the best and they are actually easy to breed, if you follow this route.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks
That helps a lot.
How do I know if my bns are ready to breed?

 

Feed then and feed then and feed them, and when they are big enough, and the female is full of eggs they will breed! Patience in very important here and any artificial induction is completely unnecessary. What you must also do are regular 50% waterchanges, because if you feed them a lot the nitrate content of the water will go up considerably. Perfect and strong filtration is also essential.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

As Dirk mentioned, my bristlenoses are fat as they get fed at least 6x a day, and I do water changes every 2nd day. On the baby tank I change water everyday as they are becoming very messy. One thought I forget to mention but Prof did mention this, in my baby tank I do have a peace of log and let me tell you they love that log

 

Do I need to feed them normal portions a few times a day
or
smaller portions a few times a day?
Can I feed them lettuce?
Wil it help?

 

To be honest I think you should ask @Khalid, reason being he breeds with all sorts of pleco's. My bristle noses get what I feed my discus, which is beefheart, bs, bloodworm, ocean nutritions pellets, tetra pellets, wafers and spirulina. So I don't just feed them specifically. It will also depend what else are in your tank, if it is just bristlenoses them just remember you can feed them anything from peas, zuchinis, cucumber, wafers etc. My advice, feed smaller portions more frequantly.

 

Thanks a lot

 

Regarding Ancistrus cirrhosus
My views differ, and might be a bit controversial but here it is ...

the PH they can breed in varies, 7.5 down to 6. Out of this range is not impossible but happens with varying success.

It is not necessary to remove the female or male. If you want you can, Fry can survive without parents

25'C - 27'C ideal

IMO stay away from ornaments that has paint on them, BN suck them straight off
Go Natural, Wood, rocks etc.
tank, 2ft upwards for a pair

depends on temp

IMO wood is liked and good for the fish but I will not go as far as saying essential, roughage can be obtained from their diet

Prof please elaborate not clear

The male will allow a second female to spawn next to an existing clutch of eggs. Male female and small fry will not eat the eggs

To differentiate bloat, fat and pregnant, experience helps

this helps but not essential, good water quality as the prof said

Fry will eat whatever the adults eat, more frequent feeds for the fry improves the mortality rate

 

Thanks