Bristlenosed Pleco Fry, How long until they are large enough to mix with other fish in aquarium?

[Brytonrock]

Hello.
I have a pair of bristlenosed pleco that laid eggs a while ago and now I have at least four surviving offspring.
We have manage to catch them and place them in a nursery enclosure in the tank.
My question is how long will it take until they are large enough to allow them to join the main inhabitants of the tank?
We don't have a second aquarium to set up as a seperate tank for them, so they are in one of those mesh enclosures you put in the main tank.

We have an Aquael 90 litre tank with an Aquael Unifilter with built in UV unit.

Our other fish are golden barbs, green tiger barbs, black widow tetras, leopard danios and the two adult bristlenosed plecos.This adds up to a total of sixteen fish before the new arrivals.

Any comments would be most welcome.

 

[TheShrimpBrothers]

Congrats on the baby fish! A good general guideline is once they are a decent amount bigger than the largest fish mouth thats in your tank. They shouldn't take too long to grow to that size, just keep an eye on them. I'm sure you're anxious to give them some more space and let them run free in the tank!

 

[Colin_T]

The baby bristlenose might get eaten thru the bottom mesh in the breeding net. The babies will sit on the bottom of the net and the barbs could pick at them thru the netting.

If the babies are young they will need the rotting plants and wood in the tank to feed on.

your best bet might be to put them back in the tank and let them try to live in there. If you want to breed bristlenose catfish then set up another tank specifically for them, or fill the main tank with plants so the young have plenty of places to hide. Most will survive if there are lots of plants and some wood to hide under.

The baby fish won't make any difference to the bioload on the tank until they are an inch long.

 

[Brytonrock]

Thank you for your advice Colin. We never planned to breed the plecs, it just happened that one morning my wife spotted the eggs and what we now know to be the male sitting guard on them, inside one of the decorative items in the tank.
Hopefully everything will go well and we'll have some extra residents in the tank.