Possible Ancistrus Spawning

[Sonny Disposition]

Hi folks. I think one of the Albino ancistrus I picked up at a CCA auction appears to be gaurding eggs. He's stuck to the side of a planter (the tank is bare bottom, but I'm growing val in tubs) and he's motionless, except for the rythmic fanning of his bottom fins.

I'm not sure of the species, since I picked him up at the auction. (I'm guessing Ancistrus sp. albino "cowherdi.")

Anway, he's in a cichlid tank and the water is very hard.

Should I remove the planter to a rain water tank, and put an airstone next to the eggs? Or should I leave well enough alone for a while?

 

[Pat Kelly]

Personally I would let him guard them and see what happens. His fanning should be enough as far as air.

It would also depend on the Cichlids he is in with. Some will eat the fry or at least kill them. After you see what he does and what the eggs do then you could always move him and the female for the next try.

If you go ahead and move the egg cluster make sure no snails can get to them.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Don't the eggs need soft acid water to hatch?

And I'm guessing his tank mates will eat them as soon as they're free swimming. Baby jaguars, mayans, yellow labs, and aulonocaras in that tank.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pat Kelly @ Nov 12 2008, 04:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Personally I would let him guard them and see what happens. His fanning should be enough as far as air.

It would also depend on the Cichlids he is in with. Some will eat the fry or at least kill them. After you see what he does and what the eggs do then you could always move him and the female for the next try.

If you go ahead and move the egg cluster make sure no snails can get to them.[/b]

 

[Pat Kelly]

I use the same water for all my fish. I do nothing different. I had fry hatch and grow out. But probably would be best for them.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

OK. So that fish moved and is no longer fanning his fins, so I guess there aren't any eggs.

Do they lay the eggs on a surface, and the male sits on top of them?

Or are the eggs attached to the underside of the male?

At one point, the male had moved to another spot, but was still fanning his fins.

These are really young fish--only about half the size of the larger female I have in the 29 high.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pat Kelly @ Nov 12 2008, 06:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

I use the same water for all my fish. I do nothing different. I had fry hatch and grow out. But probably would be best for them.[/b]

 

[Frank Cowherd]

Hey Bob

You can get a lot of false starts with ancistrus. THe males seem to love deceiving me. They will sit in a cave and pretend to be fanning eggs and then a day or two later they move someplace else and do nothing.

Maybe they had eggs but the eggs did not develop. I do not know.

ANyway when they do have eggs they do what you described.

What happens for most ancistrus, maybe there are some that do not know the rules, is that the male selects a cave or crevis that is just the right size so he can block the entrance. Then when a female picks him to spawn with he lets her into the cave but will not let her out until the eggs have been laid and fertilized. Then he lets her out and guards the entrance. He fans his pelvic fins to keep a flow of oxygenated water moving over the eggs. The eggs are rather large and stick together. you can remove them from the cave and place them in a net at the surface of the tank. Add an air stone to keep water moving over the eggs.
When the eggs hatch they look like sticks attached to a large ball, the egg sack. You do not need to feed anything until this egg yoke is mostly gone. Then put in some small pieces of leafy green stuff like collard greens or kale.

Actually the ancistrus are not carnivorous, you can raise a batch of babies in the presence of many other adult ancistrus. Hey you can even raise daphnia in an ancistrus tank. The daphnia eat the bacteria with consume the leftovers from the ancistrus vegetarian diet.


Frank