BN Pleco Always in Cave

C

chunkswrestles

AC Members
Dec 30, 2008
146
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0
Maryland
hey,
i put this cave in for my bn plecos so hopefully they would breed and at first the male would constantly dig around the cave. he has now stopped the diggin but now he is always in the cave and he won't come out. i know that he is not fanning eggs. why might he be doing this? he is a mature male and is he trying to lure the female in even though im not sure if she is mature (she is around 2.5inches).
thanks
 
I suppose thats one possible answer; Though how big is he? I believe i read somewhere that it helps to have a female of similar size to the male.
at 2.5'' the female may be matured already.
 
mmmmm...Not that big a difference - It may just be him trying to get her into his cave.
As long as he doesn't look unhealthy dont worry too much :P
He's still eating right?

Plecos are more active at night so its worth trying to get a peek at him of a night time after lights out to see if hes only in the cave of a daytime
 
he is healthy. it doesn't look like the female is getting bigger with eggs (well at least to me) so im goin to try a 75% water change tomorrow
 
He's just chosen his breeding cave and is making sure nothing else tries to move in. No worries, as long as there aren't any eggs/fry to tend he'll slip out for food.
 
My males do that all the time! He's just trying to lure the female in. Usually they will have their tail hanging out of the cave, working it back and forth. Perfectly normal.
 
He likes his cave! Not to worry, he'll soon be spawning and fanning!
 
well you guys were right about them spawning soon because this morning when i woke up i found eggs. unfortunately somehow alot of the eggs seem to have been removed from the cave. so i collected the eggs and put them into a fish bagger container and i put the container into the tank with an airline. i had to use this because my hatchery is being occupied by my australian desert goby fry and im waiting for my growout tank to fully cycle. the spawn had around 45 eggs is this a good amount for a 2.5 inch female and her first spawn?
 
The male may have kicked them out. Happens sometimes the first go-round! First spawns are smaller in number so that sounds about right. See what happens while they are in the container. Hopefully he fertilized some of them. With the cave.....especially since the eggs have been kicked out once, either on purpose or accidentally.....be sure to reposition the cave so that the back end is lower in the substrate than the front end. Keep it angled that way (higher in the front), just push some extra substrate up to the front opening. It does help prevent accidental kicking out of the eggs. Once the eggs are out, there's nothing the dad can do to get them back in.
 
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