How to Breed Pleco Fish? Tricks what Experts Use
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Breeding a pleco fish is not as hard as you think. This is quite an easy process and anyone of you can do it. To breed a pleco fish you have to know the process and after that, you can help pleco fish to breed
The pleco fish need a separate breeder tank to breed. The male and female ratio should be 1:3 in that breeder tank. The breeder tank should have lots of caves (100 dia plastic pipe) and plants (except Anubias). The male and female pleco fish should be sexually mature enough to breed. If all the water parameters are okay then it will breed within 3 weeks to 1 month.
But only these two line information about pleco fish reproduction. You should need more information to learn before breeding your pleco fish. So let’s start learning
To breed pleco fish you need some materials. Without these materials, your project can be failed. These materials are
• Separate 40-gallon tank
• 1 male and 3 female pleco fish (same species)
• 150mm dia PVC pipe (length 1 meter)
• Plants
• Sponge filter
• Nutritious food
• Lots of driftwood
These all are the mandatory things that you need to breed pleco fish.
You may think that these things are obvious for a general fish tank. Yes, you are right. But to breed pleco fish these all are a must. For a general fish tank if you skip one of them then it will stay without much worry but the reproduction of pleco fish will not be successful if you skip one of them from this list.
Let’s start to know the process of it
How do you breed pleco fish in a fish tank?
When you want to breed pleco fish, you need a separate breeder tank. In this tank, you only keep pleco fishes.
Step 1- Make a 40-gallon breeder tank
First, you have to make the tank comfortable for pleco fish. This tank should have to have partitions. If you want lots of pleco fries at one time then partitions are needed. Otherwise, for the first time, you may go for just one single fish tank.
The tank size should be a minimum of 40 gallons. One pleco fish need a minimum of 25-gallon space to thrive. Just because you are trying to breed a pleco fish so you have to give more space to it.
Step 2- Decorate your breeder tank
Second, you need to decorate the breeder tank for pleco fish. People may tell you that this is not mandatory but in this tank doing decoration has a purpose. Decoration makes your pleco fish comfortable and stress-free.
To decorate a fish tank you need lots of driftwood. Pleco fish love driftwood. You can keep plants here. Anubias aquatic plant is not recommended to keep in this tank. Pleco eats and destroys Anubias in a very short amount of time. So as plants you can keep Java moss or Java fern in that fish tank to decorate it.
Step – 3 Add some caves in it
In the breeder tank, there should be some caves. Pleco fish want these caves for mating purposes. To make caves you can use PVC pipes.
The diameter of the pipe should be a minimum of 75 mm (3 inches) and a maximum of 150 mm (6 inches). The width of the pleco fish should be lesser than the pipe’s diameter. You need to check this.
The length of the pipe should not be more than 1.5 meters. This should be dependent on the length of the pleco fish. You have to assure that a minimum of two pleco fishes can enter that pipe for mating with each other. Minimum 3-5 pieces of PVC pipe (1-meter length) should be added in a tank.
Step 4- Add sponge filter and air stone
You have to add a filter in this tank obviously. Without the filter, the breeder tank will be very dirty with fish waste and excessive foods.
The filter should be a normal sponge filter. You can add other filters too but make sure that the filter should do biological and mechanical filtration.
Airstone is an additional thing that you can add to your tank. Airstone helps to move water vertically. So water movement happens both horizontally (by the filter) and vertically (by air stone). This is effective for oxygenation. The breeder tank should be full of oxygen otherwise fishes will be stressed.
Step-5 Provide nutritious food
Food is a thing that makes your pleco fish happy and healthy. During the reproduction period pleco fish should eat more.
You should provide nutritious foods at this time. You can rely on the Hikari algae wafer. This is good, especially for herbivores fish species. As a pleco herbivore, it will like to eat that food so much.
If you don’t want to invest money in it then you can go for natural foods. As a natural food, you can provide minced cucumber. Pleco’s favorite food is cucumber. This is nutritious too for fish.
Read more: – Does pleco eat driftwood? Advantages of keeping driftwood in a fish tank
How many pleco fish should you keep in a breeder tank?
In a breeder tank, you should not keep more than 4 pleco fish. Generally, one pleco fish needs 25 gallon of tank (depends on species to species). But in a breeder tank (40-gallon) you should keep one male and two to three females.
You should not keep more than one male pleco fish because male fishes fight with each other and weaker male fish can’t participate in mating. So that fish will be wasted in the breeding process. A total of 5 pleco fish in a 40-gallon fish tank will be very congested.
How long pleco fish need to be sexually mature?
First of all, you need pleco fish that is sexually mature. Generally pleco fish can give birth from the age of 6-9 months when they become mature enough to breed. But this depends on fish to fish. There are different types of pleco fishes. The common pleco (bristlenose pleco) takes approx 6-7 months to become sexually mature.
What is the breeding behavior of pleco fish?
After being comfortable in the breeder tank pleco fish start removing the dirt from the cave. It checks all the conditions of the cave before mating. After checking caves male pleco gives a signal to a female one. Female pleco enters that cave from another side. This is the most possible and common breeding behavior of pleco fish.
What should be the breeder tank conditions during the reproduction of pleco fish?
The breeder tank is the most sensitive fish tank which you will ever have. You have to check the parameters all the time. Generally, 25°C is the exact temperature which you should try to maintain. But from a range between 22°C to 27°C is a suitable range for a breeder tank of pleco fish. When baby pleco fish come out then you should try to maintain the water temperature at 25°C.
So let’s know about the other parameters of water of a pleco breeding tank
Water hardness – 4 – 12 GH
pH level – 6.5 – 7.5
Alkalinity – 4 – 8 KH
Ammonia level – 0 ppm
Nitrite level – 0 ppm
Nitrate level – < 50 ppm
Phosphate level – < 0.5 ppm
Chlorine level – 0.001 ppm – 0.003 ppm
Does pleco eat its own eggs?
Generally, Pleco fish is peaceful community fish and just lay down on the driftwood or caves. It does not disturb any other fish. But if you want to keep alive all of the baby pleco fish then you should keep these fishes in a separate fish tank. As these are too small so you need to provide some extra care.
Pleco can eat its baby unknowingly just because these are too small. A few months later when it grows a minimum of 3-5 inches, you can replace these with your main tank.
How do you know if pleco eggs are fertile or not?
Generally, pleco fish’s eggs become round-shaped with an orange color with a whitish tint. 10-20 eggs remain together. If you see that the eggs of pleco fish are growing with a bright orange color that means those eggs are fertile.
If you see that eggs are becoming pale and more whitish then you should know that pleco fish fry will not come out from those eggs.
Read more: – 10 Types of Pleco Fish: With Pictures & Recommendation
How fast do pleco fish fry grow?
Analyzing and knowing about the growth rate of pleco fish help you to make a fish tank for pleco fish. Pleco fish grows on an average of 0.39 inches per month. This is the average growth rate of every type of pleco.
In the world, there are various types of pleco fishes. The common bristlenose pleco fish grows approx. 0.25 inches per month and grows up to 4 inches within 7-9 months. The royal pleco fish grows 0.75 inches per month and grows up to 6 inches within 10 months. This growth rate of pleco fish does not continue every month. This is an average growth of pleco.
To know more about the growth rate you should read another article which is fully based on the growth rate of pleco.
So best of luck & happy fishkeeping 🐟
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