L46 Zebra Pleco's

Glad to hear all is going well.

Come on Dude! I'll take you on with mine :bigsmile:

 

Hey @Charles, come on enter FOTM, I too will enter my Pleco.... between @Hawk and myself we will give you some competition I'm sure!!!:bigsmile:

 

@Charles, any updates on your L46? How is s/he doing? Are you still keeping up with your wc schedule??

 

Hi all

@wsteene, my L46 is doing very well thank you. Also seeing him/her more frequently now, especially at night time, it knows when it is feeding time. He/she is really stunning and very frisky and fast moving. I relaxed on the WC regime. Now doing WC 2 x per week, Saturdays and Wednesdays. I do 20l WC change with a gravel vac 1 x week, pH stable at 7.0 to 7.4, NO3 at 10mg/l atm, the rest is at 0mg/l and TDS is at 114ppm. Doing 50/50 tap/ro mix with WC. Don't want to use to much RO, it messes with the kH and I DON'T want a pH crash. Also using Sera Super Peat Granulate in a bag in my SUn Sun 304B to lower pH over time. Can't realy say that it works because pH stays between 7.0 and 7.4, so the "natural" buffer in the tap water is still good although the kH is at 1*dkH. I added once 5ml Seachem Replenish just to stabilize the kH/gH and pH. So far so good, kH now at 3*dkH. L333 and L144 that's in there as well are also doing very well.

I removed the Neons. I'm feeding between frozen blood worms, cyclops, BS to BS flakes, marine flakes with garlic, carnivore pellets, viformo tabs, Tetra Prima (they like these alot), prof Dirk's SV2000, shrimp pellets and 1 x month raw whole shrimp pinned down with a fork and removed the next day, eaten or not. Due to high temp, food spoils fast.

My Stress levels much much lower now...lol. It's just during long power outage that I stress a bit, but I have other backup plans/actions in place for that.... gas is here to stay and I always have enough aged water on hand.

 

I'm glad to hear all is going well @Charles, also your stress levels have dropped, all good news, thanks for the update!:hello:

 

@Charles, thanks for the update, glad to hear all is well and that you have managed to down on the wc. Parameters looking good and seems if those plecos are having a 5 star menu from which they eat. Good to hear that the stress levels have subsided a bit.

 

Hi all

Just an update. My L46 is still doing great! She comes out more frequently now. Eating very well, movements are fast, almost never on her tummy and resting on her pectorals 95% of the time. Still has that nice blue tint on the dorsal and faintly on the body. She is rarely seen in a cave, only close to it at feeding time and when I move about in the room. At first she would dart into a cave but now she is only staying close to it while feeding. The L333's are also doing great in there. I added a new addition to the tank.... L129 Hypancistrus debilittera - Columbian Chocolate Zebra. For now there is only one L129 in the tank, I bought 6 more of these beautiful pleco's but left them at the LFS as they got ich. When they are 100% healthy I will collect them and add them to the L46 tank as well.

Water parameters staying fairly stable, here is the current readings:

pH - 6.7
kH - 2
TDS - 114
NO3 - 10mg/l
NO2 - 0mg/l
PO4 - 2.0mg/l (this is a bit high for some reason - looking into this)
Ammonia - 0mg/l
Temp - 29*C

I do 50/50 RO/Tap water mix. No algae problems thus far, not even a build-up on the Betta barracks and that usually happens within 3 weeks time. The betta's are doing very well in this water and temp, very healthy and alive and must say. L144 also doing very well but will still remove them at some stage, well as soon as I add the other 6 L129's they must come out deu to diet. Don't want them to get bloat because of the wrong diet which is mainly for carnivore's. I do add some algae wafers every time I feed them but these little guys eat whatever hits the bottom. They love prof @Dirk's soft pearls alot, so I feed those sparingly. I have not yet found more L46's for sale but did talk to one of the sponsor's who will help me.

 

@Charles, thanks for the update, glad to hear the L46 is doing great and is more out of the caves. You can speak to @SloMo.00., he knows about somebody who does have L46's in a display tank which he is apparently willing to sell. Hope they are still available.

 

My LFS has 3 zebra pleco's at the moment. They ordered them for someone who thought they were R250 instead of R2500 :bigsmile:

 

@Hawk..i know which LFS you are talking about..apparently they had 8 in stock...5 already been sold.

 

The water is red in the tank so hard to see them but they are amazing. Trying to convince them to sell it to me for the price of a normal ancistrus :laugh: No luck so far

 

Hopefully all 5 that has been sold off is still alive and swimming:worried::cry:

 

Hi guys

Thanks for all the info, I will follow it up.

 

Hi @Charles, I love all the good news, thanks for the update and congrats on good fish keeping!!

 

Hi charles happy to hear your babies is doing well.I had a big surprise this morning.My second pair of bristlenoses had a large fry.I think they are about two weeks old and have only see them now for the first time.The pair is bove dark ordinary bristlenoses but there fry is three different colours.Some is dark some is light coloured and some is albinos.How do that happen?Are they maybe albino carriers?I am very happy with this lot.Any advise on special feedings for them?My albino pair had some babies but I do not see them anymore and it is only the parents and a young pair of angels in there tank.Any advise from anybody will be most welcome.

 

off topic - mods can move this post

One or both parents carry an albino gene.

Feed same as parents

 

Hi @blueskipjack, I agree with @Khalid. Mods, please don't remove comments on post #155 & #156 even though it is off topic. In this case somebody might learn something from this. Thank you.

 

Hi All

My latest addition to my L46 tank...

L129 Hypancistrus debiliterra - Columbian Chocholate Zebra's (Sorry for the bad pics, taken with my BB)



I first bought one and then ordered 7 more. I got 6 more. When I went to collect they were ill ridden with ich so I left them. The LFS owner said he will quarantine them first. Well five died and I collected the surviving one. He/she is 4.5cm and I now have two of them. I thought the L46 was fast and jerky, you should see these guys go, it's like they got built-in rockets...lol. They are also not as shy as the L46 and L333's.

 

Really good looking fish!

 

Hi all

Just a quick update. My L46 is still doing very well. It's not caving so but hidding behind the caves. It only ventures out after lights off. What a stunning fish! I got lucky with another L129 yesterday, it's a 6cm male from the same lfs I got the others from. There were two of them but I took only one since it's definately a male, very alive and healthy. Here is a pic of him...



The hunt for L46 is going slow and it's frustrating... I'm either to late or the prices are ridiculesly high. I'll get there eventually. Want at least 10 of them at the end of the day for starters.