Holy Moley- is it possible???????

[Munroco]

While it's a shame they aren't clowns, Dennison barbs are a nice box to tick.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This gets stranger every day. The biggest offspring are now over an inch.

I just got back from taking a look at the tank to check out the kids. And to my absolute amazement I saw a new fry maybe 1/2 inch. I take this to mean two things. First, spawning is likely ongoing. Second, the adults are eating most of the eggs or new fry.

The information I have read on denisonii spawning are that they lay a lot more eggs than I am seeing fry and that they are voracious about eating them. One of natures favorite species survival strategies is for there to be many eggs produced most of which will become food pretty fast. However, some number will not be consumed and will result in fry.

The reason I settled on plecos as the species with which I would work was that the Hypancistrus are cave spawners and the dad tends the eggs. When the fry become free swimming of soon after they leave the cave or are booted by dad. Basically, this meant there was not much I had to do in the process. I rarely had to do a dry/rainy season, I never pulled eggs or fry but let the dad do all the work.

My job was to insure conditions were favorable for spawning and to feed good foods and to do the needed tank maint. I always used species tanks so there was almost no predation of eggs and none of free swimming young. This sure made my job a lot easier.