[Julia]

My BNPs have spawned and I am so excited! However they are in a community tank. This is the second spawn that I know of. The first was totally eaten. I have managed so far to scoop 5 into a floating breeder box and have put some floating plants, a small piece of wood and some zucchini in it. Is this adequate? What should I be feeding them?
Do they need some sort of cave? I have a 4 gallon tank I could set up but it doesn't have a filter or heater and I think my husband would kill me if I set up another tank.(

 

[VElderton]

I am not the pleco expert as others on this forum are, however I have had some success over the past 3 months with two varieties of these fish and I am growing to like them more and more.

From what you write it sounds like you have things pretty much right. I have found plecos like wood and the floating plants. You can add a cave but so far I have not found this essential. I feed my young plecos blanched zucchini and other dense vegetables, such as cucumber, yam and carrots. The blanching helps breakdown the plant fiber a bit as well as helps the food sink to the bottom where the plecos can get at it. In addition to feeding the vegetables I supplement with algae sticks which breakdown pretty quickly and the young plecos love it. Because I am having some success I am also looking into making my own DIY gel food.

Since it's best for you not to set-up another tank ... you might consider at pretty low cost an external breeder box that has flow through water filtering. More than likely if you have had one BNP spawn, there will be others. I use the Marina type but I think the Sudo and Finnex both look like they will easily get the job done.

Air driven - Marina

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Air driven - Sudo

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Powerhead driven - Finnex

Personally I like the air driven boxes ... one less plug-in and more than likely you are running an air pump so probably have extra air supply if you are only running the one tank.

 

[Julia]

Thank you, that sounds like a great idea. Nice and easy.

 

[Fishman35]

I threw in a clear plastic 1 litre pop bottle with a few algae wafers in it and waited a few hours and I caught about forty of my 100 babies which made it easy to transfer into another aquarium. Just make sure babies dont get too much protein in their diet as I believe it causes bloat which is fatal to them. I also feed spinach leaves anchored down with a plant weight and fishing line.

 

[Gardener]

Thanks again for the babies Julia. They pretty much disappeared into my heavily planted and landscaped tanks, but I still see them now and again.