Breeding L#s

[eklikewhoa]

I have a mammoth female bristlenose that is pushing about 7" and about 2" wide without the fins and two smaler 3" males in my 180g and lately the female looks a bit swollen in the gut like she's preggo.

I have never attempted to breed L#s other than the L046 I kept years back but they were about 2yrs in and maybe another 2yrs till breeding age so that never went through.

I have these housed with my Tropheus, Petrochromis, Telmatochromis, Brevis and MBU so I would need some sort of breeding cave that the others couldn't get to or wouldn't be interested in getting into. Any advice or suggestion for this would be greatly appreciated.

I got the female from happytiffany and she's bred her in her community tank but I don't have much caves for this female to go to like happytiffany did and with the little fish I have I think they are more curious about fish eggs.

[eklikewhoa]

picture of the female and largest male.




poor side profile of the female

[myjohnson]

You should make some caves.

I don't think tropheus will eat the eggs. The male pleco will protect them.

If you dicided to order caves let me know. I might order 5-10 for my 375g.

I added a small cave last weekend and I already have a male that's taken to it.

[eklikewhoa]

only problem I have is my female is probably as big as some of your petros or close... the male is maybe a 1/4 her size so having her in there and then the male being able to block the entrance is gonna be hard.

The Telmatochromis are sneaky mofos and I think they'll get in there.

What sizes are you looking for? I might get some caves and a few logs... more so the logs cause they would blend better with my rocks.

[myjohnson]

Small ones for me.

6"x1.25"x1".

[eklikewhoa]

hmm... looked on plecocaves.com and cichlidbreeding.com and don't think any of the logs or caves are big enough for my mammoth female.

[myjohnson]

I used a dude on aquabid. He custom made my caves to order.

I'll forward you the email.

[eklikewhoa]

might be the same guy I bought from in the past cause I had some custom made back then.

I have a tile cutter at the house so I'm gonna see if I can find some thin enough sheets of slate and probably make my own.

[76dragon]

home depot or lowes has them

[sunkenmetal]

terracotta pipe?

[myjohnson]

might be the same guy I bought from in the past cause I had some custom made back then.

I have a tile cutter at the house so I'm gonna see if I can find some thin enough sheets of slate and probably make my own.

Chu Tri has a title cutter too. I was going to borrow his and make some but I got lazy.

I have black silicone If you want to make some.

I could really use some more in my 125g too. I have plecos in all my tanks. Might as well breed them too I guess.

[myjohnson]

terracotta pipe?

An easier way is to buy PVC. Then heat one side up and pitch it together to close one end.

I seen people do this on the Pleco forums but it looks out of place to me.

[barrettsline]

Mine are breeding underneath the holey rock in my mbuna tank.

[myjohnson]

Lol, that works too. Obviously plecos don't just breed in man made caves in the wild.

But you will increase their chances of breeding if you do have caves that are a certain size.

[eklikewhoa]

Yeah I'm not trying to put ugly crap into my tank and want something that'll hide in the back of the rocks.

You gonna be up north thai? Ill grab the silicone from you.