Hi all.
Rob,
A very nice initiative, congratulations!
I am keeping 4 zebra pleco's (1male and 3 females) for two years now.
And I am very happy to tell that they spawned about a month ago!
I am not sure how many fry I have, but they are at least four and doing fine. The majority is already outside the breeding tube.
They were always living in a rather overcrowded communitiy tank of 160 liters. But I am happy to tell that almost all their former roommates moved next door to a 400 liter tank. They have now the place practically for their own, only dividing it with 5 hadget-fish they never meet, a pair of dwarf chichlids that are too busy with their own courtships and some harmless Armano shrimps that do the housecleaning.
I hope that this initiative will lead to exchanging breeding experiences and eventually to a network of zebra-owners that start a breeding program for the zebra pleco.
I am very concerned about the fact that the zebra pleco appearred on the Brazilian list of endangered species this year and I want to encourage everyone to buy only tank-bred zebra plecos.
Gabriel