Bristlenose Plecos

[misterted]

I started out a few years back with 2 Bristlenose Plecos, a male and a female. First in my 55G, then in my 125G.
The male died after a while and the female is thriving and growing...currently she's around 4"+.

I've been thinking about adding a male. Is one male OK to add or should I add a female too? what's the proper ratios?
Also, If I bought a male, should he be larger than she is?

Now, I don't throw any extra food in there for the Bristlenose because any time I do, the Mbuna and the Synodontis eat it....even at night.
The only success I have had is to throw in a slice of cucumber at night and then I see her munching on it.
Will my tank be able to sustain more than one of these Plecos?

[joe_jaskot]

Ancistrus can be kept in pairs or in groups. Males do have a tendency to fight. Given a large enough tank, both sexes can co-exist. Better off with more females than males. They are cave spawners with the male tending to the eggs and fry. Ancistrus will hybridize. Only one species should be kept to a tank. Most of the ones you see available are ancistrus temenicki.

[AlishanAS]

The mbuna will eat what you add during the day and the Synodontis will devour the food during the night. Continue your use of the cucumber or zuchinni or move the Ancistrus to another tank. If you are serious about breeding, then definitely move them to another tank. The Synos will attempt to eat anything in their path, including fry.
A pair is fine. I spawned the longfin Ancistrus easily in a 5g tank and they were 5-6" TL.
I don't believe size matters in this case.

[Flareside]

you can also feed them canned string beans. They devour them quicker than cucumber or squash
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b165/LesWebb/100_0313.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b165/LesWebb/100_0296.jpg

[CJC]

Wow, canned stringbeans. I knew there was a use for them.

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

Damn great idea! I never thought of that. I will have to try them!

[Flareside]

when these guys breed there are probably 75+ babies. Its a b*tch to keep them all fed with traditional fish food and since humans (that I know anyway) dislike canned string beans, the plecos will chow them by the handful- plus they are soft enough for them to eat easily.

Also if a brown and an albino breed- the offspring are about 50/50 brown/albino.

Albino to albino yields only albino offspring- even if the albino are offspring from the original brown/albino pair. Kinda cool

[fishbuddy]

There are two of the gene's that determine albino or plain. Since the albino gene is recessive, a fish with one common gene and one albino will apear to be a common color. if you get 50% your albino parent has both albino gene's
an the plain parent has one plain gene and one albino gene. I keep 7 pairs of breeders one pair is a standard fin albino and a long fin common, the fry are 100% common color and 50% long fin. The female must have no albino gene,
since the male is albino he has 2 albino gene's.

[toddnbecka]

I have 2m/2f standard browns in a 30 long. After I moved the spawning pair of Austroloheros out the fry aren't getting picked off as soon as they become free-swimming. About half of the first surviving spawn are albino, looks like all of the following batch were brown. Male is currently sitting on another batch of wigglers, so I'm waiting to see if any of them will be albino.
On a related note, what sort of fry would crossing a longfin brown with a super red produce?