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Just removed 18 babies (to add to the 2 that escaped from the cave a few days ago) making a total of 20 babies ,from the Cave of the Male Hypancistrus Inspector. The incubation and absorbtion of the egg sack is the same as for the zebras.They still have about a day of egg sack left.Will try and get some photos of the babies ,tomorrow.
Here is a picture of the female.



What make this even more interesting is that a couple of days after this pair of L201 spawned, a pair of Zebras spawned in the same 55ltr tank. Saw some young at the back of the cave today . Wont know how many, until I remove them maybe in a couple of days.

Regards,
Des.

Here is a picture of Dad ,in his cave.



And here are a couple of pictures of some of the babies.





Regards,
Des.

Hi Des

Excellent news - thanks for the pics. I am interested to know the exact tank conditions you maintain for these. What size of tank do you normally use and how many fish per tank? What kind of filtration do you use and what is the normal weekly feeding for the fish? Are you using 75%RO with the rest as tap?How long did you have the fish before they spawned?Sorry for all of the questions and thanks in advance

Andrew

Hi Barbie,

Thanks.I did have 3 males and the one female in my stock tank for a few months with a couple of caves but nothing happened. Of course the water was around a gh of 8. The female was getting so large , I thought she would burst. So decided to put the female and a male ,I picked at random, in my zebra breeding tank which already had 2 pairs of L046.
The male 201 decided that he wanted the cave that already had a male L046 in. As stated before, the male L046 was involved in a "midnight fight" and subsequently died from its injuries. As I also wanted the zebras in this tank to spawn, left the remainder in there and decided to be more vigilant.
It took almost a month,after moving them, before the L201 spawned and this was a couple of days after I had done 2 large (30%) water changes using only RO water. 2 days later , the zebras spawned.The ph measured today was ph5.9/6.0 !!!!!! Temp is 84F. Raised the ph ,by adding tap water today.
Normal water changes of approx 20% once or twice a week was 50% RO and 50% tap water , which reduced the tap water gh of about 16 to about 8 ,when the RO had been added.
What was amazing is that the 2 babies that escaped from the cave earlier in the week did not have any black colouring and only developed it 2 to 3 days ago ie.approx. about 6 to 7 days after hatching. I decided to remove the remainder from the cave, as these 2 had nearly used up their egg sack.

Regards,
Des.

Congrats Des! You must be so excited about getting these to spawn, not very easy to aclomplish, so well done!

Looking forward to seeing lots of pictures of the fry as they develop

That's wonderful Des. Congrats.

Ken

Thanks everyone for your kind comments.

And some more good news is that I removed 13 zebra babies from the cave , that was in the same tank as the one that the L201 bred in. They still have about 2 days of egg sack left.

And the bad news is that 1 of the 16 from the last lot of zebra babies (about 3 weeks old) died yesterday from choking on a piece of my frozen mix. I thought at first it was fungus on its head but when removed from the tank, took out a large piece of food that had stuck in its mouth. I thought that they would eat only the small particles. Obviously not, so will have to keep them on the small granular food for a lot longer.

McEve,
Being excited is an understatement. But I do like a challenge !!!! I will photograph the babies as they grow.

Andrew (Fishfinder),
Some of your questions have been answered in my previous post. It appears that your post crossed mine when I was replying to Barbie. All the info about the breeding tank 24"x12"x15"( and a photo),filtration and feeding data, is on Forum Topic "First time zebra dad" . Please feel free to ask ,if you need any more info. Do you have some L201 or are thinking of getting some?.

Regards,
Des.

Hi Des thanks for the info. Yes I am thinking about acquiring some - I think L Number fever is taking over in our household although I have no idea where the extra tanks are going or how I am going to hide them from the wife!

Andrew

Congrads for your accoplicement Des!!!!

Nice to see that someone spawn these beauties!!!

Congrats on the double spawn Des. I don't think that I've heard of two Hypancistrus species spawning in the same tank and at near enough the same time. I also noticed that you may have a variant of L201, gold spots as opposed to white/cream. Perhaps it's just the picture.

Well done.

Adam

Congratulations, Des, you are obviously doing everything right. Do you sex Inspectors the same way as Zebras and did they breed in a similiar size cave?

Adam,
Yes, they are Gold spots.


Seahorse,
Thanks.
The L201 are sexed exactly as Zebras, they are about the same length, though a bit bulkier, and use the same size caves as for zebras.

Regards,
Des.