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Just returned from a week out of town to find my big male L182 gaurding newly hatched fry.

Last Sunday my wife did a 50% water change and used rain water I was storing in a nearby empty tank for the refill. The parent's tank is 81.3F today, but the rainwater tank is 72F so there would have been a slight temp drop as well when she added the rainwater.

I assume they spawned that Sunday night as the fry appear newly hatched today (6 days after the water change).

Tank is a 20 gallon long filtered by a Penguin 660 powerhead (170 gph) with an attached sponge filter and a Penguin biowheel 180 HOB (180 gph) also with a sponge filter attached. Tank has a slate bottom with no substrate. Decor is two spawning caves under a large slate tile and a large piece of driftwood.

I will test pH, GH, etc tonight.

I guess that technically my wife spawned these

-Shane

Busted.

Jools

You are on to me
This happens a lot. I suspect one "trigger" is that I am out of town and thus the fishroom is totally quiet with no interruptions.
-Shane

Shane wrote:You are on to me
This happens a lot. I suspect one "trigger" is that I am out of town and thus the fishroom is totally quiet with no interruptions.
-Shane

Pseudasmart has the same experience.

Pre water change chemistry

pH 7.4
GH 219 ppm
TDS 439

Water chemistry at time of spawn

pH 6.8
GH 110
TDS 238

pH drop was slight but the rainwater halved GH and TDS.

-Shane

The spawning set up. Fry are in the pleco burrito with the male.
-Shane

Fry emerged from the cave on Friday the 20th.

So eggs laid the night of 7/8 Feb, hatched 15 Feb, and left the male's cave 20 Feb.

The fry are really small for an Ancistrus sp, especially considering the adult size this fish attains.

-Shane

Working hard to find the correct first foods for these fish. My fry die off rate has been high. So far I have added the following food sources:
1) Aged oak leaves
2) Repashy Catcon special
3) Sheets of algae scrapped from the glass hood
4) Fresh Spinach leaves

The parents are very happy with the Repashy. The fry however appear (looking at their feces) to only be eating the spinach, and even then, only after it has aged a day or two.

-Shane

Eating and growing.
-Shane

My l182 has spawned twice in last two months and each time roughly 40 eggs per. I feed them zucchini slices primarily but green beans right out of can are great! Make sure to give them a thorough rinsing first. Carrot centers are also highly nutritious foods. My mortality rate so far on my ancistrus has been extremely low. Think I lost 3 of 40 last batch.thought this may help.

Shane wrote:Just returned from a week out of town to find my big male L182 gaurding newly hatched fry.

Shane wrote:This happens a lot. I suspect one "trigger" is that I am out of town and thus the fishroom is totally quiet with no interruptions.

Dang, I was hoping this would be a universally applicable principle: I just got home from a week away and nothin'... Nadda... Zip...Zilch... No spawns awaited my arrival. Oh, well.
Good luck with your fry.

Cheers, Eric

Still eating and growing. I also noticed that their Chaetostoma neighbors have been busy.
-Shane

Just broke down this tank and cleaned it up real nice after nine months away. The parents had been busy. Took out four young adults at 3 inches and seven large fry at 1.5 inches. The parents spawned at least twice in the last 9 months in pure tap water much to my surprise. I was also surprised that many fry grew up with no special care or feeding. Diet was algae wafers and zucchini.
-Shane

Congratulations, Shane. Keep up the good work. Now if only all our fish took advantage of such downtime to spawn!

Cheers, Eric

that's awesome! best of luck with the babies