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this is the forth time that my female zeb trap in the cave with dominated male i hope it will work this time. during this waiting, should i make a water change? will this disturb the couple?

by the way still worry about the tank mate that i just put 3 weeks ago, one snowball pleco and one panaque. both are 3 inches however, all zebs scare both of them away every time they comes near the colony. i am afraid that they might attack frys, if a couple does breed. will they?

Don't make waterchanges during the time of spawning activities, you can do very small waterchanges as soon as there are eggs but try not to disturb the male.
I would not like to have those 2 plecs near my colony

Good luck!

thank you, john

female zeb is out now but the male still in the cave. i try to look inside the cave with my flashlight but i couldn't tell. the male is too big or may be there is nothing in there is there any other sign that the egg layed?

I've never had any success breeding anything other than common bristlies in a community tank...

We had a group of 4 starlights in our lounge comm for over 6 monthst after i moved them from their breeding setup in the shed...

I moved them to a tank of their own about 3 weeks back and 2 weeks back they spawned...

I'd move the other plecs to make the zebs happier - (the fry wont be at risk... but that's assuming they breed)

good luck though

now i can see some eggs in the cave. i am not sure how many. i hope this time i have to make some water change and clean the bottom of the tank to make sure there is the least nitrate left in the tank. the problem is the other pleco like snowball and panaque. this is going to be a mess to remove them as the tank is pretty big and have plenty of hiding space. i don't want to scare all zebs as i try so hard to make them trust me and get use to me for many months. (the tank is right next to my bed, mostly i stay with them all day) they are not hiding anymore. this time i gess i have no choice right?

is anyone leaves other plecos in the tank and do no harm to frys? i did saw one picture from smithrc tank that he got snowball (i am not sure) very close to the group of frys.

The biggest danger in pulling apart the tank to get the other plecos out is that the zebs are not happy being out in the open. They will try to find hiding places. This means they will try to pile into the cave with the dad and the eggs. Trust me I have seen this only with newly free swimming fry rather than eggs.

If you want to do this now I would suggest moving the cave, complete with dad and eggs, into a holding container. I use a 1 quart measuring cup for this. I can put it into the tank and then transfer the cave into to for a move into a holding tank. You can leave the cave in the container if you like. When you have netted out the plecs and then begun to return other cover and caves so the zebs can hide, you can then reverse the process and return the cave with dad and eggs to the original tank.

If they have spawned they are obviously happy... the other plecs wont cause a problem with the fry...

I'd just do a water change and leave it at that...


Good luck

how do u do with feeding when the male have trapped 1 female in cave and the female is hungry ?

Edlund wrote:how do u do with feeding when the male have trapped 1 female in cave and the female is hungry ?

leave them to it - I've had a female trapped for 1 week + from time to time...

i meant the other female nr2 is hungry

sorry for ripping the topic

that's ok i don't mind at all as long as you have a better understand from this topic.

by the way thank you all for the reply.