CONDITIONING
Today is the day that I begin what is probably going to be the longest series of articles I'll ever write. However, it's the information which I am best known for and definitely the topic I get the most questions about. This is part one of a series of articles about how I go about breeding exotic Loricariidae and the equipment I use. For the purpose of this article, I am going to assume that you already have an adult pair or colony and a suitable sized tank to allow them plenty of territory as well as the proper decorations to allow them nesting sites I know that this is assuming a lot, but will cover these aspects more in depth as the series continues. I'm writing this article right now because even I have problems that come up from time to time. At this moment, I have 3 colonies of adult breeders that are practically refusing to condition. For that reason, I have had to spend my day today tracking down problems with the environment, and fix anything that could be causing me headaches.
I'll start with food. I've already covered what an omnivorous diet should be like in the article about Ancistrus. So, here I'll assume that this group of fish are comprised by Hypancistrus, which happens to be my favorite genus. I traditionally feed Hypancistrus a combination of high protein crumble food, shrimp, scallops, and spirulina wafers. These are rotated on a daily schedule, and I do not feed fish that still have a substantial amount of food left from the day before. As a result of this, not every group will see all these foods in a week, but will eventually be fed on the item of the day. Likewise, all feeding is done in the evening at approximately the same time that the sun sets enough to darken the tanks. Only when there are fry present do I feed in the morning, and then only a limited amount of the crumbles to tide them over till evening.
Cleanliness is the next most important, and probably should have been the first item mentioned. I say this because most Hypancistrus nearly refuse to eat if the water is not up to par. My cleaning schedule consists of wiping tank walls before every water change. Every second day, I do a water change of 25% making sure that I remove all of the waste that broke free from the walls and floor of the tank.
No less than once a week, the sump gets wiped down to allow settled waste and biofilm to be sucked into the filter. Most normally, this is done twice a week. After the sump has been wiped down, I allow the spray bar on the fluidized bed return to "kick" the waste into the pump where it is eventually stuck in the micron filter. This is done every time I clean the micron filter, and I normally allow an hour after wiping the sump before changing the cartridge.
Because I run a central filter system for these fish, I have a bit more control over their environment. However, I also run into headaches that the average aquarist does not have to worry about. For instance, if the flow into a tank is too slow, the temperature in that tank has more time to drop. Therefore, I have to constantly check the amount of current into all the tanks on the system. If a tank is running too slowly, I have to clean the spray bar and readjust if necessary. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but is probably the most time consuming part of what I do with these fish. I also have a thermometer that I move from tank to tank to insure that all the tanks are warmer than 88 but no more than 92 degrees.
I've already mentioned current in the above paragraph, so I'll try to expand a bit on that.
It has been my experience that most Loricariidae condition much more readily if there
is a strong current in the tank. Traditionally, this means no less than 10 turnovers an hour.
In order to maintain this, the tanks need to be checked several times a day for any kind of
blockage of either the spraybar or the overflows.
Again, this is assuming that you have a good filter system, but I'll explain mine real quick anyway. After the pump, the water is sent up a 1 inch main line. Just above the level of the sump, there is a "T" which branches off to a 5 micron canister filter. At the exit of the filter, there is a shut-off valve which allows me to change the cartridge without causing my fluidized bed, next in line, to siphon back into the lines. After the fluidized bed, I have a nitrate reactor. This is a very simple piece of technology which simply relies on a very long section of silicone hose wrapped inside a 5 gallon bucket. The idea is that the slow flow of water eventually becomes anoxic inside the hose as bacteria breaks down the nutrients, namely nitrate. The vast majority of the water leaving the reactor has very little, if any, nitrates. After leaving the nitrate reactor, the hose continues to the top of another 5 gallon bucket, stacked on top of the nitrate reactor. Inside this bucket, I have several pounds of bio balls and a rigged drip tray. This allows the nitrogen biproduct to gas off, and increase the level of oxygen in the return water. The drain from the oxygen reactor is a bulkhead in the lowest portion of the side wall. Via a hose barb, the water is gravity fed back to the sump and returned via an oversized spray bar to prevent the need to pressurize the degasser. In the end, the water coming from this unit is cleaner than 90% of the tap on this planet. And, I can take pride in knowing that I built the vast majority of the filter system myself, even if it does look a bit of a mess.
I know that this sound a bit segmented, but all of these components work together. Without one of them, the plecos will slowly stop conditioning. I couldn't call myself pleco_breeder if that were to happen. However, you now have some idea of what I go through on a daily basis to make sure that my fish spawn with a bit fewer problems.
