# bristlenose pleco



## RoseBlood (Aug 4, 2010)

I had a male bristlenose pleco. Had because I had an ich issue and he was one of the casualties. However, I plan to get another, so still need advise on the problem I had. My female laid a set of eggs and before I knew she had even done so I began to see one free swimming baby. Then the next time, keeping a close eye on his shell he was using for a cave, I noticed there were eggs. Then my kuhli loaches were digging in the dirt to get to the bottom of the shell where there was an opening, so they could get to the eggs. To stop this I removed him, his shell, and all of his eggs to my smaller 10 gallon tank. A few days after being in there my husband made the comment that he could not see the eggs. I looked in and he was on the spot where the eggs were and puffing water through his gills. I told him maybe they air-rate them like octopuses...I was confused to what he was doing. Then all of the eggs were gone. He ate them all. Does anyone know what went wrong or if this is a common thing.


----------



## toddnbecka (Jun 30, 2006)

Moving him to another tank may have disturbed him into eating the eggs, or they may not have been fertile to start with. Typically males will guard the eggs until they hatch, and I've seen some of the fry spend as much as 2 weeks in the cave with the male after hatching before moving along. No worries about the kuhli loaches eating the eggs, the male will protect them well enough.
You could also give the next male a more suitable spawning cave. Placing it near the outflow from a filter is also helpful, that way the male doesn't have to work as hard to keep the eggs aerated.


----------



## RoseBlood (Aug 4, 2010)

I ended up getting the new one a chichlid cave with the proper 1 1/2 in opening for the bristle-nose pleco. I have it and the other cave systems right under the filter outflow already. The shell that I had for him was getting a little cramped for him. The picture is on my 55 gallon album. He ended up picking that out over some other log and plant pot that I had in the tank. This time it is in the 10 gallon and will not be an option.


----------



## Hansolo (Sep 10, 2010)

I'm just curious if you know which female BN laid the eggs? The albino longfin or the brown. I have some BN I think are due to spawn any day. I'm always trying to gather more info. I don't even know if a longfin and a plain can/will breed is why I ask.


----------



## toddnbecka (Jun 30, 2006)

Longfins are the same species as common BN, just a selectively bred variant. Crossing them will produce some longfin and some regular fry; you need 2 longfin parents to produce all longfin fry.


----------



## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

As an aside, I saw my first female BN at the lfs yesterday.She ws very cute- just a common gold. I have 2 males- 1 gold and one harlequin. The gold is quite sociable and comes out for food but the other is rarely seen. he is also lazy and does not do a good job on the algae.


----------



## Cam (Nov 9, 2009)

I think you made the mistake of moving the wrong thing. You should have kept the parents in the tank, and taken everyone else out who was causing issues. Once the eggs hatched you can then do whatever you want with the fry.

Good luck on your next try!


----------

