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My males started to show colour at 6-7cm. Bigger tank will get them growing but as Ryan suggested tankmates might keep their colour subdued. definitely worth the wait.

dude -you want visit the wet market in the sichuan province. I still don't have nose hairs.

I only be tempted to use top grade or food grade bait, as the lower grades may have been refrozen.and considering how cheap you can get thawed or frozen cooked or raw prawns for at the supermarket your price difference would be neglogable I would think.

breeding: Aulonocara Chilumba- mostly spoken for for a few months " " heuseri. Sold to me as these, breeding true. Copadichromis Azureus. Demasonis. Aulonocara rubescens.

Please don't call it "flathead gold nugget", or if you do be sure to point out that it isn't a correct ID for that fish. It would be better to set the record straight earlier rather than later. Perhaps a paragraph or two discussing the situation here where importers should be using other avenues as their creative outlet, and not the creation of fish names.

Top photo is definitely L067 psuedancistrus and not a gold nugget at all. That name was given to these fish by the importer who had no idea what fish was. Same importer who named L168 buterfly a "bumblebee" and a unknown ancistrus "blue spot". nice young clown shots. This is 11cm male

Congrats!- they'll feed off their yolk sac for nxt 5 days or so, then I'd let them loose to search out all the yummy algae in the tank. You deserve a wine.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/chelmon/index.htm This is a good little site on rainbows with lots of images. Has a info page for boesemani.

GBA's were developed from a few fish and as the others have indicated the brown spot which is usually on side or at the base of Caudal fin is common and a result of their history. It doesn't necessarily indicate recent hybridisation.

I think that you'll find a lot of fish will continue to grow until they die. This isn't perhaps true of tetras and smaller fish but I would say at two years old many fish in the cichlid or suckermouth world would be 60-80% of their full size, remembering some can live ten years. This isn't even taking into consideration things like tank size, food, tankmates, tankspace per fish, water quality, etc. I guess your ottos and Angels from your list have the most amount of growing yet to go. I have a male Bristlenose that is 12cm, over 4 yrs old.

Or get a breeding/fry trap and transfer eggs there. An airstone aerating would also be handy. Survival is iffy in this case I'd say. Tell the kids it was a practices run, they got to see the eggs which is cool. Put in a little plastc pipe or ornament cave or even bamboo cave if you have one. Hopefully Dad BN will choose this for nxt time.

I just rubber band mine to driftwood, rock or coral and after a short time it has attached itself. My experience is that water quality and a little flow is as important if not more so than the amount of light

There is no evidence or documentation of that being the case. The L168 is known to be almost chameleon like and will alter colouring to suit environment. I would suggest that the same fish in the photobucket shots would have an entirely different and more the striped mode of patterning if they were on a light substate in a planted tank with lots of hidey holes. On dark backgrounds they can go almost black and their stress colouration would be not dissimilar to a BN. I would well imagine a bare tank situation wouldn't get the best colouring out of these fish.

As per others. A varied supply of vege and wood foods. My L190 on courgette. I guess it's about 18cm.

Ah! Re-read. The first pic is L168- Butterfly or flounder plec. Will only get to 10c-12cm. Algae eater and colouring can change quite dramatically on different backgrounds or stressed

Ah! Re-read. The first pic is L168- Butterfly or flounder plec. Will only get to 10c-12cm. Algae eater and colouring can change quite dramatically on different backgrounds or stressed

If anything they will get more definite black and white as they grow. They'll get about 25cm eventually. Same genus as gold nugget- omnivore Nice fish.

So we sit on arses and do nothing!!! What a gloom merchant. I've read many accounts where the adverse effects of inbreeding would take 20-30 generation to be a real problem. You yourself have mentioned the GBA which was originally bred from a few individual fish in Paraquay Given that many of the fish we are talking about don't hit sexual maturity till 2-4 yrs, then we are talking about decades of enjoyment of these fish in NZ, by which time we could have thousands ready to breed with any that might make our shores from other breeding programs. I would have thought the notion of sustaining supplies through wild caught specimens has a far shorter lifespan and questionable sustainability than the situation I've described. I fail to see how the fact that there are yet to be described species would change this in anyway. In fact we have very little informayion on the breeding habits of many of these fish. Do Alpha males inhabit territories? are they migratory? wildcaught specimens are collected from the same spot and they will include the smallest of juviniles through to the largest of males. There is alot we don't know The only hurdle I can see is attitude. Agreed that pooling individual fish as adults willy nilly, hoping to get them to breed isn't the way to go. I'm descibing a situation of colonies. No I'm not a Zoo or a scientist, and I'm not on a crusade to to save all plecs. But I like many around the world have a passion for these fish, where they come from and the importance of that region to the world as a whole. Your argument would have me commit suicide because I'm going die one day anyway.

The funny thing about Hypans is that they do breed like Gba's once they get going. It's the triggering thats the key - Ask Mr pleco.I'm sort of guessing that he must have been a locksmith in another life.

the ones I saw were under rocks and wood.

good post. Although I can't agree with your last assertion. No zoo here would be interested as far as I'm aware in a pleco breeding program breeding. There are a number of people who have spent much time energy and their own money to ensure some pleco's remain within our shores, particularly as organisations like Ibama clamp down on exportation, and as our importation rules may change. We now have plecs like L066, L333. L260.L136, L046, that are here in numbers because of peoples hard work. I know of colonies of other pure strains like L128, L200, L239, L400, that are growing up with the hope of breeding. with your philosphy fugly all of the above fish could be gone from NZ within 10 yrs.

only as a treat if they eat there veges first.

same!- printing that one out for the morning coffee. Cheers! Muzz

The more vegetarian the plec the longer the intestinal system they have and the less they will tolerate protein based foods. Panaques have incredibly long intestinal systems in order to breakdown vegetable/wood matter.

yep! Maybe night feed them if the other fish hook into them first.