The Zebra Pleco Saga

[zippo]

You may be onto something there Sherlock.

[apistomaster]

If flat rectagular shaped caves being used on all the plecos I do have breeding, L260, L333 and L134, I cumulatively have raised about 600 fish and they have all turned out normal.
I don't see any reasons why H.zebra would be any different except some breeding fish are now F1 and have perhaps been derived from sibling pairs. The low mutation rate is good. but the fact that there is probably a fairly low genetic diversity among the bred fish is apt to be when the first signs of mutations could begin showing up to my way of thinking. Only by breeding the snubbers and using irregularly shaped cave will determine whether the defect is genetic or environmental. At least a few of you are exploring this so time will tell if it is really just an artifact of using rectagular caves or caused by genetic factors.

As to their diet, I basically use earth worm sticks as my staple food for raising my fry. These are about 46% protein and contain shrimp meal and other foods but I'm sure the calcium content is adequate to fulfill their requirements and as the grow larger they also get fed frozen blood worms which are also calcium rich. The exoskeletons of shrimp and aquatic insect larvae which incorporate calcium thus provide the calcium the wild Hypancistrus need. The foods I use are providing as much calcium as they would get from the aquatic insect larvae they eat in the wild.

For now we can only speculate about the cause(s) of bull nosed Zebras but I lean toward it being a genetic defect having little to do with the environment.

[TwoTankAmin]

Well its been some time since I posted. The breeders have been on hiatus and nothing has died, so its been pretty dull in zebra land. However, I am now of fry alert, it is possible the alpha male is on wigglers. As usualy old eyes, small caves and protective plecos are making it hard for me to really know. The signs have been promising but until I can say with 100% certainty, its all speculation and hope.

The F1 group is continuing to grow but there are no signs of spawning what so ever save for the 3 claimed caves. 3 is important because there are the two wc adult males that went in with the F1s and those two both claimed caves at opposite ends of the tank and have held onto them for many months. it is the smaller guy in a middle cave that has me happy, cause he is an F1.

Finally, not wanting life to get boring, I recently acquired a group of 7 TR L-173b. They and the L-236 were both at the top of my fish wish list and both became available almost a month ago. I had already blown my 2009 fish budget and had to scrape. That meant I settled for the 173s rather than the 236s as the latter were a bunch more money. Maybe next time.

Of course there is a pattern here, and its black and white

The 173s went into a 10 gal Q tank in the bathroom so I could easily monitor them. They went in at about 2 am after a 4+ hour drive and about a 2 hours of acclimation for them, 4 discus and some amano shrimp. I never had time to get any pics. However, the plan is to move them into their own 20L in the not to distant future and I will for sure get pictues then.

[TwoTankAmin]

Hello Houston? We have wigglers. The Hiatus is over.

[luckyfind]

congrats TTA. Now for some pics when you can.

[TwoTankAmin]

I have never been able to get pics of dads in caves including with eggs or wigglers. I never pull eggs or wigglers to a trap either. The result is I only get fry pics when I do a fry hunt which involveds3+ hours and breaking down the tank totally.

Its hard eneough even confirming spawns let alone getting pics

[TwoTankAmin]

I just did the nightly cave check- three caves each with a male inside and one cave with two zebras in it- and its the prime spawning cave too.

[TwoTankAmin]

False Alarm- must have been a date.

[TwoTankAmin]

Finally got around to doing a fry hunt over the past weekend. The bad news was I found 1 really bad snubber and possibly spotted a second. They were part of a 17 fish group I moved into the growout. I left behind about 15 fry, a dozen or so of which appeared to be from the most recent spawn mentioned above. I am hoping they will get back to work now that the big kids have been sent away.

I am also able to resume selling offspring again since I have a few more in the pipeline .

[TwoTankAmin]

Totally Bummed

I have just been notified that as of 3/31/2010 the site on which I have 98% of my pictures uploaded will cease to exist. The result is some 7 years worth of posts with my pictures (or links to them) in them and which are spread over at least 10 different sites will all become no good. That includes this site and this thread.

I will find another site to which I can upload all my pics, but the task of trying to identify everything that exists now and then to replace the links is too daunting for me to even contemplate.

Of all the threads I have uploaded photos on across the net, this thread is the only one I may make an attemp to fix.

You can blame ATT for this.

[zippo]

Copy it all on disk and download it where they won't "cease to exist"? If there is such a place.

[johnpeezy]

Man TTA thats terrible.

jeeze you have probably been there longer then most of the ATT employees. you should ask for a severance package and see what they say.

[TwoTankAmin]

So..... we just had 4 days of continuous rain. I was behind on tank work and did a big wc on the zebras over the weekend. I am happy to report there are two tails in the prime breeding cave. Keep your fins crossed.

[TwoTankAmin]

Some good news-

I have another picture host. It is a great reasonably priced pay site called SmugMug. $40 for an unlimited number of pictures and felible settings. They have a free 14 day trial and if you don't want it, don't pay and its gone. I paid about 2 hours after I began after I uploaded close to 100 photos in well under 10 minutes.

I just finished going through this entire thread and have replaced the urls that will soon die with ones from the new site.

[TwoTankAmin]

Ho Lee Kow

I just started working on the zebra breeder tank to do maint and wc. I went for my rubber gloves and as I turned back i notice the zebra who has been parked at the back of an upper story cave was at the mouth. then I saw him a level below and then he zipped into the wood and rocks.

So I went back to work and decide to shine the light into the cave- there are 8 eggs in there As Gomer said to Sgt. Carter: SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

[zippo]

Gee where i seen dis befoe? I KNOW! At a chat site. Congrats T.

[TwoTankAmin]

Well the good news didn't last very long. At cave check last night there was no sign of the dan nor the eggs or wigglers

[TwoTankAmin]

Well something is up. I just discovered a pretty beat up male hiding in one of the lesser used caves. The dad from the spawn above was in his cave and looked fine so I am thinking it was the Alpha male on the other side but he was not in his usual cave.

I have had 4 of the colony die one at a time since getting them 4 years ago. One I believe swam out when i over flowed the tank early on and the rest I discovered corpses well decayed but assumed the cause of death was fighting. I have seen scraped fish one more than one occasion over that period but the one I spotted today looked worse than any I have seen til now. He is white almost from right pectoral to the stat of his tail one that side. There is no redness showing so I am hoping he will heal up fine.

I will feel a lot better once I spot the alpha male back in his cave. Lets hope that the fighting explains the recent loss of the 8 eggs and that the current results indicate things are settled and the spawning can resume.

[Bwhiskered]

I broke down and bought 5 zebras that are about 2 years old they look big enough to spawn and one female looks like she is carrying spawn. They may be a bit young just yet but the 2 males took up caves and the 3 females spend all their time under some drift wood. Do you think they are too young to spawn?

[TwoTankAmin]

Have not posted in a while. There is no good news really. There is no spawning activity in the breeder tank. There still appears to be a lot of fighting- I don't see the fights only the aftermath when doing cave checks. I am concerned that the group has lost its balance and the pecking order is a big issue.

The last time i did a fry hunt I was convinced there were too few males, but that is using my poor ID skills. I think there are 2-3 males and thus 6-7 fms. If so I am thinking that adding males might solve things. I could grab the 2 wc males in the the F1 tank and add them in. They would be the first males to spawn with the F1s as they are both much larger which means I would not really have an F2 spawn. Plus, they would likely assume top spots within the breeding group once they finished proving why they should.

[TwoTankAmin]

Oh Boy- What a day......

last night at feeding I noticed two 134s acting spawnerish, this morning I had eggs and knew I needed to move cave w/ dad to a trap having lost the last eggs.

I also talked to an experienced hypan breeder this morning about my idea to move the two wc adult males out of the F1 tank and into the breeder tank. He agreed which set my afternoon's plans in motion. Catching the two wc males should be easy enough as they both have regular caves they occupy at opposite ends of the tank. (Bottom tank- small square cave 2nd from left and small round cave 3rd from right. 134s are in the top tank)



So after pulling the 134 cave to a trap and moving a powerhead to get some flow I was ready to nab and move the 2 male zebras. The right hand cave was empty but the left hand one had a tail hanging out. So I submerged my large specimen box, covered the front of the cave with my hand and lifted it into the box. It was easy and I set the box down next to the sink. Soon after I figured that as long as I had the dad that easy to see with a flashlight I might as well take a look inside the cave.

To my complete amazement there was a tail poking out from under the zebra, there were two fish inside the cave. This was likely the first trapping and attempt at spawning in the F1 tank. So my plans quickly unraveled as it made more sense to return the cave and the fish to the tank, which I did. I then proceeded to do the weekly maint. and wc on the tank. At the end the cave was empty

The male has since returned to the cave, alone..........

[steveh28]

Grrr... Hate that! Hopefully you just spooked them a bit and they will return shortly. Keep us updated

[TwoTankAmin]

Checked the caves about an hour ago and there were 2 zebras in that cave again.

[TwoTankAmin]

Well there has not been any spawning. There have been 3 instances of two fish in a cave but they were all dry runs I guess.

I have purchased two 3 inch wild males which will get shipped in the near future. Once they clear Q they will be added to the breeder tank and hopefully the males will fight and make a real pecking order and then spawning will resume.