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Pep breeding help needed


gianniz

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well I know they should breed but they aren't!

All signs shows they want to breed, male guarding the log while female fat and staying 5cm away from the males log.

Tried water changing when it rains etc but they aren't doing it!

I know the 4foot tank is a fry tank so it's full of little xenos. Could this be the reason?

I say this as recently I discovered by moving certain fish that failed spawning many times in this community tank but soon as I moved it to it's own 2 foot tank, I had frys.

So should I move peps to it's own tank?

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ok, as it rained today I moved them to another tank (which has few L201), did water change on that tank.

Now I have a male is totally blocking the entrance (tried shinning a torch light but the male won't budge!) of the breeding log and I cannot find the female!

Been trying to breed peps since 2004!

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Hi Gianniz, yeah so, bit of a check list here

1, bogwood

2, feeding them zuchinni

3, water change, as you said

4, stormy weather can be a trigger with water change as well

5, i`ve heard shinning torches in at the male can cause disruptions

6, from my experience breeding them, i had no other fish in the 3 foot tank except for 2 adult females peps

HTH

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female came out of the cave but no eggs :bye:

1. check

2. going shopping tomorrow

3. grrrr

4. check

5. no more torch

6. l201 are 4cm and there's only 2 and they actually get along with peps! One corner has male pep and a L201 side by side and same goes for the female pep and another L201 lol.

PS thanks Storm boy for you help.

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thanks Brucem, I'll be reorganising the tank tonight :)

I have the cave with drift wood ontop. Female is always staying under this drift wood litterally few cm from male, even though there's other drift woods in the tank.

About lighting, I have the tank next to the window so it's always bright during the day (I have anubias on driftwood). I know Noddy :) has his tank pretty dark so should I keep my tank covered up?

Also about water change? I've been doing 40%-60% every week (2foot tank). Should I increase the frequency?

Oh, it's raining now so gotta go do water change :)

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What was the ph of the tank they were in before? Xeno raising tank? If they have had a large shift in ph it may take them a little while to re adjust and get into the groove for you. I have also found over time that you will get larger spawns and higher hatch rates in soft water, this does end to give some credence that the Aussie pepp had a lineage that includes a blackwater ancistrus.

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Also as storm boy stated, a torch can cause issues, some males will eat the eggs if disturbed, was your female thinner when she emerged? If so there is a chance they had spawned and the male was spooked and ate them.

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they have been moved about a month ago.

female was/is still fat :(

long time ago, I had a similar situation where female died and when I disected it, it had plenty of eggs. (eggbound?)

anyway, I'm just going to leave it and see how it goes.

if no baby in few months, it's going to the auction :)

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Hey Gianniz.

I gotta say with peps it a waiting game.

I have had mine since fry. and thats nearly 3yrs now. Ive now just notice 1 of my several femals earlier in the cave and went back to check and notice pep eggs in cave.

Cant say what I have done thats different but as I have read. Its a hit or miss thing.

I now can wait to see the results of waiting for sooooooo long to see my first bactch of fry.

hope yours will do the same..

cheers

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thanks Marrick,

I've done what you have done, bought 10 little ones, waited 4 years.

4 died and 6 left turned out to be all males!

sold off all other males and swapped a male for proven female.

Now I have 1 male and 1 female.

Hopefully they are the same type.

Based on all the readings I've done, they seem to be compatible (male guarding, female staying very close).

I'm doing regular water change (never done this much water change ever! lol).

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  • 9 months later...

Always hear successful breeders saying "set and forget" just have everything right face the caves away from light and face of caves with high current.

Have also heard of blacking out the tank.

On top of that its a hit and miss as stated. Have heard of people getting peps on eggs the night they put the proven breeders in their tank.

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  • 1 year later...

funny thing that I bread bristles yrs ago lucky to do a water change every 3 months /had soft wood in there and they bred like rabbits' I used to sell them to the lfs on gilbert rd which now is closed , now have two males in my new tank taken out of the old one ,biggest male would be atleast 12 cm long while the albino is approx. 6 cm ....good luck with the fry just leav them with the perants

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  • 1 month later...

I'm having problems getting mine to start breeding too.

I've got two pairs in a 3 foot tank, I even tried removing one male for a few months with no luck. They are in my garage so aren't disturbed a whole lot.

I'm feeding them Hikari wafers, the best ones available along with zucchini and shelled peas.

They have lots of driftwood and until recently had four caves but now I was told to remove a few caves so the males will have to claim one each but when I've been in there to look they've been near the larger driftwood piece and nowhere near either cave. Should I remove another cave to make it only one cave in there? I'm doing water changes regularly also. The water return runs freshwater across the cave front.

I've bread normal ones before that just did the job themselves no frills style but these are proving to be hard to get going

The two males are big, over ten cm each easy and the females not far behind. They bred one batch for previous owner but since I've had them, about 6 months now, nothing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I also heard that current was important across the face of the log.

I've had two pairs in a three foot tank for about 8 months or so now out in my garage waiting and waiting. I was first using a canister filter which provided bugger all current and when it became infested with small snails and their eggs I decided to change to a 800lph internal filter that provided great current across the cave faces and within a few days I checked on them after setting and forgetting I looked in and the male was fanning and the female wasn't far away from the cave. Fortunately the next thing I spotted was a clump of eggs to the left of the cave opening and thought that they would be duds but I quickly put together a crude egg tumbler with it set so they dont so much tumble but get fresh water across them constantly as if the male was in there fanning them and now 3 days later a few have gone mouldy but about ten of them are actually developing and there are about three eggs which were stray from the clump that have actual fry attached to them! I'm stoked that I found them in time and they had actually been fertilised by the male! Not sure how or why he kicked them out but I'm checking them to keep tabs on the developing fry!

Always hear successful breeders saying "set and forget" just have everything right face the caves away from light and face of caves with high current.

Have also heard of blacking out the tank.

On top of that its a hit and miss as stated. Have heard of people getting peps on eggs the night they put the proven breeders in their tank.

This is what I've done now. I've made the tank quite dark by blocking the back and sides with thick foam for insulation too. There are only two caves in there, one for each male and there are four pieces of driftwood, one that's relatively new so still leeching its last bits of tannins in the water as I've read that the tannins can prompt spawning. I've been doing water changes every 5-7 days and making sure the water stays clean without any food left in there for too long so it doesn't dirty the water too much.

I think the main thing that would have got them to spawn was the change of filter giving lots of movement to he water.

I'm just hoping now that the little eggs and fry keep developing and that this was their first attempt and that many successful attempts follow. I've been wanting to breed Peppermints since I started the addiction in 2003! If these little ones grow well and survive past their egg sacs to successfully feeding on zucchini I'll keep them in a new display tank dedicated to just Peppermints and see if I can grow them up to more adults with some fresh babies introduced by hopefully swapping them with a different bloodline.

You can only imagine the happiness I felt this morning when I saw the babies developing out of the eggs! It's been a long time coming that's for sure as over the years I just never had the funds to allocate to some adults and when this 4 came up for sale I couldn't say no and now that they are giving me eggs I can't wait to see the result in tiny babies swimming around the place!!!

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The eggs ended up dieing unfortunately. A few in the tumbler started developing to tiny clear peps but I think the mould from the other eggs moved to the developing ones and killed them. But, I was checking the tank and glass for snails and on the glass was a tiny peppermint that I must have missed as an egg and it's now growing well and is in a fry net doing what they do! My first ever home made peppermint bristlenose!! LoL

I'll keep this one and try to grow it up to adult over time, and so far it's about 6mm long.

Hopefully I'll get another batch of eggs soon that will stay in the cave where they should be!! The males are constantly hanging their tails out of the caves fanning and the females are usually close by so Im doing regular water changes and giving them pumpkin and zucchini which they are demolishing so I'm going to once again set and forget and check the caves in a few days time.

Also, to see if you've read this whole post, what size caves do you guys recommend for peps? Should the cave be able to allow two adults in at one time or only one in at a time? I'm under the impression that the male leaves, the female enters and lays eggs then leaves so the male can then come back in and fertilise, is that right? My caves are just the usual D style and another rectangular entry style.

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mine like a cave that leaves room for 1 in only. guess its around 15cm long?
My females only use one of the males,, not sure why, maybe hes a sexy stud to them haha,,
But I see him come out, when they come to the cave, he usually goes in backwards then..
Not sure if thats usual tho, never really saw pepps breed when I used to keep them years ago, so can only go off what happens with my current group.

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  • 4 weeks later...

What are the odds? I checked my tank last night before I dropped in some food and it was bare of eggs as usual.

Today I drove to pick up another couple of adults for the colony and when I get home to give the tank a clean before adding the new fish I found a big clump of eggs on the floor of the tank! They all look nice a orange so the make must have kicked them out once again as this is the second batch I've had. They are in the tumbler and hopefully I'll get more than just the single one actually survive this time! I'm tumbling them in much cleaner water than last time so I'm hoping the eggs don't go mouldy.

Also, with zucchini do you guys get rid of the seeds in them before you feed the fish or just leave the seed in place?

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De-seed the zucchini if you don't want it in your filter

gentle flow in the tumbler, if the eggs move around too much they can bruise and kill the embryo

use some methylene blue if you have fungus problems, the other thing is up the temp to 28 if possible

to speed up the metabolic cycle

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De-seed the zucchini if you don't want it in your filter

gentle flow in the tumbler, if the eggs move around too much they can bruise and kill the embryo

use some methylene blue if you have fungus problems, the other thing is up the temp to 28 if possible

to speed up the metabolic cycle

How much methylene blue would you recommend and do I treat the whole tank that the tumbler is in or take it out and treat them in a separate container? I have some here but want to know the best way to do it safely.

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are you tumbling them in the breeder tank or their own small tank

you would need to dose the tank at the recommended rate on the product

it does stain things with a blue tinge

I've just treated them in their own small tank of 20L and the treatment says 1ml per 100L so I used 0.20ml or 20units so effectively dosing 1unit per litre of water of methylene Blue.

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