Ancistrus sp. cf.
Bristlenose Plecostomus
Synonyms: Ancistrus cirrhosus (not VALENCIENNES), A. temminckii (not VALENCIENNES), Chaetostomus dolichopterus, Xenocara dolichopter.
Found in fast-flowing, clear tributaries of the Amazon. These were found in 1911, by two Hamburg importers, West Germany.
(©1997 by Kaycy Ruffer)
Photos and articles cannot be duplicated without prior authorization.
(The original of this article was first published in the Sacramento Aquarium Society newsletter, The Tropical News, February, 1994, Volume 43, Number 2.)
After talking to Lee Finley in 1997, it is impossible to actually identify this species. I had been calling them the Ancistrus temminckii for so many years because that is what I thought they were after seeing a picture of a male tending fry in the Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes, 1989 7th Edition TFH. by Dr. Warren E. Burgess on pages 107-109. These looked exactly like the ones I have. Lee Finley did say there is really no way of knowing the exact species I have. That is somewhat disappointing since I really like knowing what species of fish I am keeping and breeding so I can let others know what they are when I sell or trade them.(Now back to the story below which was written a few years ago.)
I hope I write this so it will not be boring. This will be the first article I've ever written, so please bear with me.
The first Bristlenose Plecos I bought were in 1988 for a small pet store I owned in Gerber, California. I purchased twenty young ones, about two inches in total length for the store. I did not know much about them and decided to keep two for myself and sell the rest to my customers.
I placed these new charges into my 55-gallon community tank and forgot about them (almost literally!).
In January of 1990, I was looking at my community tank and noticed my anacharis plants seemed to be getting eaten. My first thought was that the Ramshorn snails were the culprits. I checked on my plants the next day and more of the plants were just twigs! Still no visual sighting of the anacharis' enemy.
On the third day while I was checking on my plants again I noticed all were bare of their foliage. But, wait! "What was that?" I yelled. I was so excited about the dark flash that 'flew' across the front glass of the tank, because I knew it had to be a baby of something in the tank, that I forgot what I was doing. At first I thought I was just seeing things.
I kept watching the small water world within my tank to see if I could find the secret it held. After two hours, I did. To my amazement, they were baby plecostomus! I could not believe my eyes. I never had any baby plecos before and did not even know I had a pair! I took every decoration out of that tank. There were a bunch of these little critters darting about everywhere. These little guys were approximately a 1/2 inch long and boy were they quick.
I looked at my plecos in the tank to figure out who the parents were. Daddy was easy to spot. He was approximately six inches in total length with a lot of 'tentacles' sticking out of the top of his snout! The babies looked just like their father in markings but they didn't have the bristles on top of their noses. Now, where's mom? The other one that was the spitting image of the fry - had no bristles on top of her nose either. She was approximately five inches in total length.
I netted all the little ones out of the community tank and put them in a separate tank so I could watch them. There were sixty nine fry total that had survived in that 55-gallon community tank.
I remember chuckling to myself about the parents in amazement because I had thought I had two different species of plecos instead of a male and a female of the same species.
I removed the parents and placed them in a 15-gallon long tank by themselves. I did this so I would be able to continue to observe them. (I was hoping I would be lucky enough to someday catch them actually spawning. The books I had read said no one had ever observed this species spawn.) I continued watching the fry through the next several months. During these months I read everything I could get my hands on to find out more about them.
Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes has a good section on the Bristlenose Plecos under Loricariidae - Suckermouth Catfishes on the main facts and how to spawn them. It also has a good photo section showing the difference between males and females and what the egg clutch and fry look like on pages 107-109. The eggs of this species are quite large and they stick together in a large sticky clump.
Here's a few pointers of information that I have learned by watching these fish that are not in the books.
The fry, once they start eating, are somewhat combative and territorial. They will swing their tails at each other and at unknown objects in much the same manner as anemone fish do to anemones. They would rather something took a chunk out of their tail than their head!
If you are interested in raising a clutch of 1" fry by themselves, I would recommend NOT placing any hiding places in the tank, as they will get very territorial. At 1 ¼" the bristles on the side of the head are very noticeable when they are aroused due to another sibling coming too close. These bristles are contracted and extended at will. They can cause quite a bit of damage to the loser of a battle. (I have seen the damage done by 1 ½" males to other males.) It is because of this that I suggest keeping the tank bare except for a sponge filter for filtration.
I remember a strange incident in Chico, CA., when I sold some fry to a pet store, the owner was a good friend of mine. The fry did fine. The next month I brought in some more fry from the next batch, and to my surprise, my friend called me the next day and told me the first group had killed all of the new batch.
It is possible that this was just one of those strange unforeseen situations that probably would not happen again. We never found out because each batch I sold her from then on was put into a separate tank. My theory would be that the first batch became territorial of the tank by the time the next batch came along and because of this fights ensued and the original tank inhabitants got rid of all the intruders to their domain.
If one plans to keep several (like ten) to raise up, put in twice as many hiding places as there are plecos in the tank. This will greatly cut down on injuries.
After having several more batches I was able to safely figure when the first batch was laid and hatched. It takes four to five days to hatch and another five to six days for the yolk sacs to be absorbed. According to this, the first day I saw plants being eaten the fry apparently had just absorbed all of their yolk sacs and were looking for food. I tried giving anacharis to subsequent spawns and they wouldn’t even touch the plant.
Another thing I used to do when the parents spawned was to remove the male, his "house", and the egg clutch to a 10-gallon tank with only a sponge filter. The male would not eat while watching his little family, so I would let him care for them until they finished hatching and then moved him and his "house" back into the breeder tank without the fry. They usually spawned six to eight weeks later.
At first I waited until the fry had absorbed their yolk sac (at which point they look like miniatures of their parents) and then moved them to rearing tanks. I soon learned that they are very quick at this stage, so I began removing the male after the eggs hatched. It was a lot easier to catch one fish than a bunch of quick little ones.
With the pair I am breeding now (1992), these are from my very first batch in December 1989, the male is quite different from his father in the fact that with the three batches I have collected from him so far, he has 'kicked out' his eggs and I have had to raise them artificially. This was no problem for me.
If one is faced with this dilemma, just place the egg clutch (which is a deep yellow/orange color and sticks together very tightly) in a fish net that has a large enough mesh for good water circulation, yet small enough to prevent any eggs falling through and place the net near your filter outflow.
For instance, if one has a power head, place the net near it but not in the direct current. I usually place mine right in front of my sponge filter outflow. It is not too strong, keeps bacteria away, and oxygenates the eggs quite well. There is no need to add chemicals to prevent the eggs from fungusing.
At a temperature of 76° F. The eggs will hatch in four days and absorb their yolk sacs in five more days. It was interesting to watch these little guys absorbing their yolk sacs. The day they hatch, they look just like the egg with a clear head and tail. They are already sticking to everything with their well developed sucker mouths and are very difficult to remove! About the second day they start taking on a dark mottled coloration. As the days go by the yolk sac is absorbed and the mottled coloring expands over the rest of the body till the they are free swimming and then they are spitting images of their parents. There is such a difference between the first day after hatching and the free swimming stage. One would never know they were the same fish.
The female I am breeding at this time was three years old before her first spawning. Her mother was only a year old when she spawned for the first time. With this pair I also decided to leave them in the community tank. The fish seemed more relaxed in this setting and hopefully will spawn longer than their parents did. These little creatures of our water world are fun to watch. I hope I did not scare away anyone who would like to breed these fish. Just remember that they are territorial with their own species. Use the simple suggestions I have given and enjoy watching them from newly hatched to old age.
One more note before I head for bed since it is now 1:45 am on a Saturday morning, I had to write this while I still had it fresh in my mind.
If you are wondering how to match or pair off your mature plecos I can give three ways to do this:
1. Leave all the males and females in one tank with twice as many "houses" as individuals. Let them pair off naturally. (The main drawback with this method is it will be difficult to figure out which female goes with the male that is tending eggs.)
2. Remove all the females and place one female at a time with the males. (When the female spawns remove the male and the eggs to a separate tank with his female. Repeat this process with the rest of the females one at a time. Be sure to add extra "houses" for the female to hide in.)
3. Pair the males and females yourself. (The fish will still spawn. I prefer letting the males and females choose their mates naturally).
Once you have pairs, set them up in at least a 15 gallon tank, the longer the tank the better. Place two "houses" in the tank at opposite ends. When the females are ready to spawn they will go to the male's "house." When they are finished she will go back to her own dwelling to recuperate. The male tends to the eggs and fry. The female will not hurt either the eggs or the fry.
Today is now December 1997 and I have more observations to add to this writing that I wrote in December of 1993.
I found the females to be quite aggressive as the males as they get more mature. They will also use the bristles on the sides of their heads to do battle. Because of this battling I went from 21 females in a 55 gallon tank to only 6 females which I immediately placed them all in separate tanks.
I remembered when I was spawning these fish for the first time in Corning, CA. that I was able to finally witness a spawning. I had the pair in a 10 gallon tank and was feeding them heavily on live tubifex worms. In their tank was a ceramic log which had a small protrusion on the left side of the opening. The female was in this protrusion tail first. The male lay across the front of this protrusion with his head towards the entrance of the log, which was facing me. Every couple of minutes the female would come toward the male and start 'pushing' on his side between his ventral and anal fins. The male would then 'push' slightly toward the female and would begin shaking rapidly. The female would back up slightly into the protrusion and then would repeat the process over again. This process went on for several hours. After the event was over the female left the 'breeding log' and started toward the other side of the tank to her own 'home'. Upon observing her when she came out, I could tell she was definitely spent of energy. I was not sure that she would make it to the other side of the tank. She went very slowly and every few seconds her body would 'shake'. After another 4 hours she was her old self again. The only theory I have is that the female has to expand a terrific amount of energy laying her eggs so they are left to the male to care for.
In February of 1998, 6 months ago, I had a group of bristlenose plecos in a planted 55 gallon community tank, and one day I decided it was time to clean the sponge filter. I removed the lift tube and to my surprise found a clown loach, approximately 2" in length, face first. Ok. That really isn't too surprising since the clown loaches like to swim into a current. The part of this that really put a knot in my throat was in front of this loach, also face down, was a female bristlenose pleco that was not in good condition. They must have been there for a few days because the clown loach had eaten away the tail and most of the scales on the female bristlenose from about the anal fin to the tail. I was mad at myself for not checking the filter sooner. I put the female in a 30 gallon tall tank by herself without any medication. I wanted to see if she would heal on her own with just good clean water. She did. It took about two months to get her scales and tail back. The scales look fine but her tail didn't come back like normal. I don't worry about that because she is basically back to normal in all other ways. One day I will use her as a breeder. Right now she is in a 100 gallon community tank and right now I have another male spawning with three females (two years old like this female) and I have no place to set her up yet. She does have a male with her in the 100 gallon tank. They do not seem interested at this time in each other much less in spawning.
These are very peaceful with other fish. If keeping more than one male or female, it is best to house them in tanks no smaller than 55 gallons.
References:
Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes, 1989 7th Edition TFH., by Dr. Warren E. Burgess, 1989, 7th Edition, TFH