Wild Brazilian Guppies, Poecilia reticulata

I have gotten my hands on some wild caught Brazilian Guppies, these are great little fish and I'm really looking forward to keeping them. The fish has gotten me interested in guppies and I have even joined the forum www.guppy.se where I have gotten some great advice.

The original "founders" consist of four males and four females picked out from an import of around 500 animals. The eight spent about a month in a quarantine tank where approximately 20 little fry were released.

My intent is to maintain this strain long-term, for this reason the four pairs have been separated to make sure that each individual gets a chance to reproduce. The fry from the quarantine tank are also being kept in a separate tank as it is likely that they are the offspring from males in the shop and therefor add to the genetic diversity of the total group.

These are the four pairs; note that the photographs show the fish in stress coloration. They are all far more colourfull in real life.

The plan is to follow and record their progress, the next step is to try to take some photographs of the males in their new tanks when they have settled in and colored up.

Offspring from the originals groups, 2015.02.01:

 

L046, Hypancistrus zebra t-shirt design

The Hypancistrus zebra, L046 design is now finished and t-shirts sporting this motif are available @: www.happypleco.com. This stunning species is now along with many other species under threat from the construction of the Bela Monte Dam, Rio Xingu, Brazil.

Notes on breeding Hypancistrus debilittera, L129

There are three positive sides which made me decide on this species; it’s small, beautiful and relatively affordable compared to many other L-numbers. Its small size makes it easy to keep a decent sized group. The males have showed very little aggression so far which also helps.

The group was bought from Seahorse Aquariums in the beginning of June 2013 and consists of two males and three females. The individuals were wild caught young adults in good condition which made it easy to sex them by viewing them from above. The males had a distinct V-shape and showed “hairy” odontodal growth along the lower body, the females were quite plump in comparison. I have been wrong many times when sexing plecos but these were quite easy (or I got lucky).

The group reside in my 125 litre corner tank along with 12 Ember Tetras and some Otocinclus cocama.
The tank is filtered by a small air driven sponge filter as well as a 600 L/H powerhead with a large sponge, the powerhead creates a moderate currents which flows along the front glass of the tank.

Readings:
Temp 26°C
pH 6-6.5
German hardness °dH 3

Wood and roots comprise the furniture as well as six small sized (often used for L046) breeding caves plus a few coconuts.
The dominant male chose a cave near the front of the tank with the entrance exposed to the current. Strangely the second male never settled in one particular cave. The females seem to prefer roots and coconut shells as temporary hiding spots.

Four spawns have taken place so far with a few weeks in between each. It looks like the females take turns to mate with the dominant male. The male has only guarded one clutch at a time compared to for instance common Ancistrus where the male can guard clutches from several females at the same time.

This is the point where I started to have problems. The tank is not a dedicated breeding tank hidden away from disturbance, its placed in the living room. Any disturbance such as a water change or a lot of movement in the room has triggered the male to eat the larva and fortunately in the process “fanning out” some of them that could be rescued.

The last time I witnessed the event it was extremely frustrating watching dead larva with their yolk sacks eaten being flushed out from the cave. The cluthes seems quite small, I'm not sure exactly but it seems that the egg count have been around 10-15 max, maybe less.

Both Darren and Bart from www.irishfishkeepers.com have advised to cover the tank and this would probably work. I would however prefer to find another solution as the tank was supposed to be a “display tank”. Before going down this route I will cover up the males cave with roots and hope that this will make him feel a bit more secure and obscure his line of sight from movement in the room. The male is also young (possibly first spawns) and he might get more comfortable in time.

Not all was lost though as I have managed to catch some of the newly hatched larva that were flushed out. These were raised without problems in the floating breeding trap above, they grew fast and at a length of about 2cm TL they were released back into the tank to fend for themselves. The breeding trap was cleaned once per day; the sides were gently brushed with a tooth brush and uneaten food was removed with a turkey baster. The fry were fed twice per day with a variation of dry foods. The box also contained oak leafs which the fry seemed to feed greedily from. Fresh water from the main tank was flushed into the box trough a small air-lift sponge filter. I let few snails reside in the breeder box as a clean up crew for any uneaten food that i might have missed.

I’ll update this post if there is any news on the nervous male, he is at the moment guarding a new batch so fingers crossed.

Update 1:

 I just fished out these little lads from their parent’s tank. They are from one of my first spawns of Hypancistrus debilittera, L129 and I believe that I managed to catch roughly two thirds from that batch.

It is very important for the growth and well-being of young plecos that they are not kept in too crowded conditions. Even more so when several batches share the tank as the smaller ones will have a very tough time competing for food and hiding spots against their larger siblings. 

These fish were moved so that their younger siblings can get a chance to grow properly and become strong little fishes.They have now moved to a 72 litre tank with strong filtration and plenty of hiding spots.




Update 2:
After the spawns described above the male calmed down and started to raise the fry himself, no further intervention was needed and the fish now spawn regularly once per month.