[ezcry4t3d]

Tonight (or technically I guess this morning) my aquarium has completely stunned me.

My 90gal, heavy planted, shrimp/snail/pleco/goby tank is full of 1/2" baby plecos.

Somehow I completely missed spawning, egg laying, tending, etc. I guess he must have picked a really good nesting spot...

I'm assuming the fry are Calico BNP. I obtained the parents as juvies from saganco last June and apparently they've grown up.

There is a small chance that these are rubber nose plecos which share the tank. I have NO experience with these fry, they look like BNPs to me, but they're too young for me to say 100%.

Someone let me know if I'm wrong and they're actually RNP.

 

[lauraleellbp]

Congrats!!

Mine aren't old enough to spawn yet, so I've never seen a juvenile- but to me it looks like the coloration coming in for a Calico.

 

[wkndracer]

No answer as to species sorry, but had to post w/congrats on the spawn!!

I have a mature pair of LFABN and three juveniles believed to be females in a 110g tank. I'm on my forth parent reared spawn of angels but so far no signs of a pleco spawn. Like you I probably won't know they have young until they really start moving around. Heavy plant growth and several pieces of driftwood give them plenty of room to hide.

Congrats again on the happy tank!

 

[Lnb]

There is a small chance that these are rubber nose plecos which share the tank. I have NO experience with these fry, they look like BNPs to me, but they're too young for me to say 100%.

Someone let me know if I'm wrong and they're actually RNP.

Yes, they're Calico BN's for sure. Looks like a split heavy on the albino genes but they'll change as they get older.

I have a mature pair of LFABN and three juveniles believed to be females in a 110g tank. I'm on my forth parent reared spawn of angels but so far no signs of a pleco spawn. Like you I probably won't know they have young until they really start moving around. Heavy plant growth and several pieces of driftwood give them plenty of room to hide.

I really don't think they will spawn with angels around without the security of some ceramic breeding caves. The angels are very intimidating and may be picking off the fry if there was a spawn.

To help induce a spawn. You can try 50% water changes with a drop in the water temperature and shortening the light hours and see if that helps. Another method is to remove the male for a while like a month or so and then reintroduce him along with some caves.

I had seven adult females in a 55g with ceramic caves and when I introduced an adult male. The girls were all lined up outside his cave opening!! They get nice round plump bellys when they're full of eggs. The males attend to the eggs and fry.

 

[ezcry4t3d]

Thanks for the replies. The breeder was almost certain that my BNPs were too young to have spawned. They were about 1.5" when I got them in July, and are now right at 3". The male has just barely grown any bristles. The parents are also significantly darker than the fry, I would never have guessed the parents were "a split heavy on the albino genes" and I have not been able to find a single albino fry thus far, nor any that are darker colored than the yellow one in the pictures. Does that mean I likely don't have the genes to get albinos or normal color mixed in the offspring?

 

[lauraleellbp]

Depends on the genetics of the parents.

If just one parent carries albino and the other does not, then you won't ever get any (visible) albinos in the next generation. Only 25% of the F2 generation will even carry albino, so chances of getting (visible) albinos even in F3 are very slim.

If both parents carry albino, then about 25% of their offspring will show for albino.

 

[lauraleellbp]

Only thing I don't know- is Calico a partial dominance trait, or recessive to "normal" BN brown, or a separate species all together?

 

[suebe333]

YAY congrats ,, awesome babies

 

[whickerda]

How has your fry survival rate been? I have a pair of calico BNPs that have spawned twice and the fry look exactly like yours. The parents are very dark and the fry are very lite in color just like these. I am having a problem though, none of my fry have survived. I have RCS and guppies (I know, I know) in my tank that breed like rabbits and I have a very high survival rate with them.

Tank temp is 72-74. I use CO2 with a drop checker and keep the solution green with a slight hint of yellow. I don't know most of my tank parameters because I never check them. I dose EI and use NE Florda tap water. I treat the water with a chlorine/chloramine solution.

One note, I suspect that I might not feed often enough. I only feed the tank a couple of times a week and the tank is reasonably algae free. Do the fry need a more constant supply of food?

 

[Lnb]

The fry are dying from starvation. Guppies are extremely aggressive feeders; besides the fact that guppies are known fry eaters. They will consume their own fry that is much much faster than BN pleco fry.

Your BN fry have a very slim chance of survival. Put them in a separate tank.

I have breed a lot of BN's and have a very high survival rate. Mine have been standard brown and albino and long fins of both. I have always heard that Calicos are very slow growing and may be more fragile on the whole.

 

[ezcry4t3d]

I only feed the tank a couple of times a week and the tank is reasonably algae free. Do the fry need a more constant supply of food?

I feed heavily, and try to always have fresh zucchini or kale in the tank. I've also got just about every kind of algae you can have growing in my tank. I have RCS in my tank with no problems, but my guppies are in a different tank so I can't tell you if they would pick on BNP fry. (I have seen them pick eggs off of berried RCS though, so it's possible.)

As far as I can count, I still have pretty much ALL of my fry. I moved 6 fry into my 10 gallon RCS tank, and another 6 into my 15 gallon RCS tank. In these tanks I've had 100% survival rates. The 4ish I left in my 90 gal tank with their parents appear to be fine, although that's near impossible to verify in so large and densely planted a tank.

I have always heard that Calicos are very slow growing and may be more fragile on the whole.

I can't compare since I've only had one batch of calicos so far, but I can tell you that there has been VERY dramatic differences in the growth rates of the fry regardless of which tank they've been in. At this point with 2 month old fry I would never believe the fry were all siblings if I didn't know for a fact that they are. Some of the fry show very little growth, while the larger ones are around 1.5" long (triple their start length in 2 months).