The L140 was my first Peckoltia. Purchased as a Big Banded Tiger Pleco (L288) they just didn't look right.
After a few months of research they were identified as L140.
L140 is a very pretty species, with a Yellow body covered with black stripes.
The yellow is quite susceptible to different sorts of "fade" due to stress, and one fish actually goes quite Orange.
Never the less as Peckoltia I was able to house and feed them appropriately.
The tank they are in is a 72x60x35cm, with an Aqua clear 110 for filtration.
They have a power head at the left of the tank which blows water from left to right, breaking the surface at the centre of the tank.
I purchased 6 of these little guys in an attempt to set up a breeding colony. I could not find a reference to these being bred in captivity, and I think this may have more to do with their misidentification rather than it not being done before?
After a couple of months I became rather concerned at the size of a couple of the females. I mean I don't play golf, and there are no golf balls in my house, so how was it that a couple of the females looked like they had swallowed a golf ball :fr:
A little more research and I discovered that Peckoltia look like this when the females are gravid.
It looked like I had one male, but he wasn't quite "manly" enough for the job I suspected, as he had not yet developed a full set of bristles down his flanks.
So off to the LFS again to see if they had any more in stock. Luckily at the back of one of the tanks was a hairy little fellow that looked like he would do the job, so home he came with me, to look after the harem of ladies.
I presented them with a variety of caves, bamboo, resin, and PVC and the PVC seemed to be the winner.
A week later, after a water change, they had had their first spawn.
The male kicked them out and I had to rescue them.
I must admit I was pretty inexperienced at rescuing eggs, so there was only one survivor from that spawn.
A couple of weeks later and I was presented with yet another opportunity to rescue more eggs. More survived this time (8) however all of that spawn have a deformity to one or both of their pectoral fins.
They look like a broken wing.
As all of the fish had an attraction to caves, I wondered if the females were causing too much disturbance in the caves and this was causing the males to displace the eggs. The PVC pipes had all had the inside of the pipe "roughed up" so the surface would not be smooth and this would allow the eggs a surface to stick to.
I decided to remove all but two of the caves so that the male could take over one cave and then things would settle down.
Unfortunately removing the caves did nothing but set the scene for a fight club! The next day every fish was carrying scars down their flanks. So I put all the caves back and the females were all happy in their caves again?
These guys continued to spawn with regularity and in the end I just decided to leave the male with whatever eggs he had left.
I raised 17 from rescued eggs and another 6 or so are still with the parents.
The TDS was quite low approx 110, and I think that this played a significant part in the spawning. They seemed to spawn every 2 weeks from December until April and as they were so regular I did not think that atmospheric pressure was playing a big part in their cycle.
General data:
Temp 27-28C
pH 5.4
TDS 110
As with my other breeding logs, they seem to lack the "I did this, and then I did that" type of information, but I don't think that I did anything particularly trigger like.
I have a regular and consistent water change method, and provide good quality food....
One point of note is that I am never quite sure what the baby plecs feed on as the transition from the egg yolk to the real food. I have found that for rescued fry if I keep them in a fry saver device that I have had soaking in a mature tank for 7-10 days, then they seem to make the transition better. I suspect that they are eating some microscopic "things" that are living on the surface of the fry saver.
Pictures:
The tank, The male with his "orange" stress colour, a female, Male on eggs, females waiting around males cave, rescued fry, developing fry (the deformed pectoral fins can be seen in this photo), juvenile in adults tank.
