PlanetCatfish.com

They did it!!! Went in late to check in and feed them. Male has a girl in his cave can just see her fins in front of him. Both are very still have been like this about 3-4 Hours now. You tube vids to follow.

Congratulations!

Will check on them again in a few hours. Had three different spawning BNs Adolfi Cory's and now very likely L397s. . Will have to start paying the water company for whatever it is they are putting in the water supply lol

Let's hope you will get some eggs, soon

Me too the males trapped three females in the last few days -they escaped- though a female outside each males cave managed to sneak in a smaller cave for him which he accepted very happily, with all this going on only a matter of time before I see results.

At last - Results!! The male trapping girls all week didn't let the girl escape this time. He has a clutch of about 40 eggs inside his cave

Hooray!!!!!

Thanks, good to be having some success with these guys

Nice! Congrats Theresa! Let's hope the next week untill hatching will go just as smooth

Thanks Jobro, all is well ATM Dad's doing his job. I also have my first pleco batch. A big batch of really cute BN babies so learning very quickly about caring for pleco fry.

Babies hatched . Dad's not kept them in the cave long has business to take care of with a girl outside the cave.

Marvellous! I've been away for a bit so it's great to come back to some good news from your L397s!
I'm now busy with some fry of my own, but not catfish I'm afraid:

Thanks I went fry catching last night and transferred them into a breeder box. 21 fry in the box so far and I spotted a couple of stray ones still in the tank, i need to catch. I'd been advised initially that leaving them in tank was OK. But with adults getting busy again;). Thought moving the fry is safer. Also dads still got some in his cave but with the pressing matter of 2 persistant girls outside his cave in the queue. I should think more fry will need to be transferred as they hatch.

Those cupido are quite rare. Congrats!!!

I like the biotodoma as well

Congrats Teresa!! Looks like you finally got them going! Keep us updated

Will do.

Great. And in today's news from west Manchester, I've just seen a half-inch long stripey pleco in my L397 tank!
Vanished before I could get a photo though.

Fingers crossed. Congrats!!! You posted there was some activities a few weeks ago hopefully there was a good ammount of babies produced and you find some more. In the tank you have they are probably well hidden. Start putting in some courgette sweet potato or other veg as was the advice I've been given.

I had a problem a few weeks ago, all my fault. I turned off a powerhead to reduce the risk of fry getting sucked in. Except I didn't - I turned off the heater instead. It was in the middle of the hot spell so tank temperatures stayed high for a few days and I didn't notice. Until it dropped to about 15C. I was expecting deaths all round. I gradually brought the temperature back up and did plenty of water-changes and hoped the adults would survive.

Then I went away for a week.

Yesterday I was getting a little bit excited by the antics of two of the L397s in a cave. Here's a pic of them at the entrance, just before they both went in. Sorry for the terrible pic but the tank's very dark and there are lots of reflections. But this morning, I thought I'd have a cautious look in the tank to see how they were getting on, and I saw THIS! It scarpered when I fetched the camera, but soon came back and I managed a plausible photo in the unlit under-stairs gloom. I guess it must be a few weeks old at least.

I'll make up some more Repashy and get some veg in there as you suggest

That is just so cute!!! Congrats! I can't wait until mine grow a bit. Must have been the temp drop that triggered them to start flirting again wouldn't suggest dropping to that extreme, but it obviously had an effect! Will be doing the same once the babies moved from breeder box in main tank.

Hopefully your little egg-yolks will grow up like this too Best of luck!

I got to see the egg development, so I can fill you on all the details here, the eggs are large in size about 4x the size of BN eggs. Once the fry hatch the egg sacs are huge and they bounce around on them like space hoppers. But at this stage are extremely fragile. Hence some initial losses.
Within about 24 hrs the egg sack absorbs a bit and they are able to control themselves with their mouths. Fry are slightly bigger than bns also. Have a tank full of bn fry so got in a bit of raising practice on time

@Mol_PMB and Teresa, I'm really excited for both of you. This is wonderful!

Cheers, Eric

Thanks Eric.

Thanks

Looks like my adults are getting busy again.

Great news - I hope they produce the goods for you

I definitely have two little ones - I have seen one several times at the rear left of the tank, and another several times at the front right of the tank. Just now I saw both at once. Of course, there could be more but I'm not going to tear the tank apart looking for them.

Hope there is more Paul . The male that just let the fry out 3 days ago has been trapping a girl since last night. At the opposite end another male is also getting attention a female's been trying to trap him! ;)