Albino Bristlenose Pleco Spawn!

I went home for 3 days and came back today to find my Red Jewels had laid eggs again which is not surprising. What was surprising was that my male Albino Bristlenose Pleco was guarding the breeding log that I put in there for them. I looked inside and I found eggs! I didn't know whether they were old enough to breed yet but I guess that question is answered! I don't know how old the eggs are, but they are still eggs.

What is the gestation period for Pleco eggs?

Anyone have any good articles or tips on how to raise Pleco fry?

The eggs hatch in 4-5 days. They will look like little strings wiggling on top of the eggs. We call them "wigglers" while the egg sac is still attached. Let the father guard them until they absorb the egg sac (another 4-5 days). Now they are free swimming, take the log with the babies in them out of the original tank and put it in a 10 Gallon with water from the original tank and a sponge filter and leave them alone until they all come out of the cave...OR you can slosh the water inside the log and then empty the fry into the 10 gallon. Make sure there are no signs of the egg sac before feeding them crushed up spirulina flakes or sinking wafers. Good luck and congrats!

Your having all kinds of good luck lately!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep me in mind when they get bigger

Yeah I am! I'm loving it! The only problem is that I don't have enough tanks and I don't have room for anymore at the moment. I am going to have to return my Harlequin and use the 55 as a grow-out for my Jewel fry and the breeding tank for the Plecos for now and I think I'm giving my pair of Jewels away to a guy on a leave of absence until I get a new place where I can have a fish room and then I will probably get them back off of the guy. The 29 gallon will then be empty for a Pleco fry tank, which should be plenty of space for the little guys!

Here are some updated pics. Much like everyone else on this site with breeding plecos, my bristlenoses are going nutts! I'm getting a spawn every two weeks. These are pics of the first batch and the third batch. I didn't strip the second batch in time and the father held the little guys in the cave so long that they ended up getting a white fungus and died. Anyway, here are some pics of the healthy batches. The bigger ones are about a month and a half or two months old. The others are about a week old.















Enjoy!

thats cool! my bn bred too, only i didnt know it till i moved the holey rock in my tank. i was wondering where he had disappered to cause he went mia for a week. well any way i need to take out that rock cause it looks like it is going to be hell to get bn fry out of holey rock. i have a peice of drift wood i will hollow out and use that. hopefuly i can have better success!!!!

Hollowed out wood works great. Also any breeding caves with smaller openings. My male likes to get the eggs in the smallest hole he can fit in. So take the holey rock out so that his only option for egg spots is the caves and driftwood.

yeah just have to keep an eye out for my new malawi eyebiters. they have been eye balling my bn.

nice pics,
i have like 6 BNP in my tanks, i hope one day i will get a chance to breed them.

What brand of algae wafers are you using?

Those are Hikari Algae Wafers.

NICE

They look great! Looks like you got some regular colors out of the spawns?

Thanks! And yes, I did get some normals from the breeding. I think that's cool, though. Genetics are never an exact science....

Yeah. You at least know that they carry the gene, though which you can tell to whoever buys them.

Yes genes are funny things. I'm still waiting for a regular color cory fry to pop up from my albino breeders.

I would guess you would get one soon. It shouldn't take more than a batch or two.

i think shes on like the 164,327,854th batch!!! lol

Oh. Well that doesn't make sense because I've gotten normal strains in all of my albino hatches. Maybe they aren't true albinos???

Well within about a week 50% don't make it, between unhatched eggs and early deaths.... Albino-ism is a gene disorder so it makes sense that the success rate is lower than colored fish.
I haven't gotten any albinos out of my bronzes either, but I do get at least one very dark brown one per batch.

As far as short fins carrying the long fin trait, I've read that long fins is a dominant trait, so the short fins are recessive for it meaning they don't carry it. I believe I read that in TFH. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.