Strange bristlenose behaviour

[Benji k]

So I woke up this morning to my males fighting a common and albino they were fighting for a while. I came back and they were back to normal but then later they were both in ther cave the albino was on a batch acouple of days ago and he’s let them out now. But the common is on a batch now.

Then after I came back and the albino was fighting the common rite at his cave Wich the common is in a batch of eggs I was really confused it looked like the common was protecting his eggs and cave I tried to get them to stop but they didn’t and I went back later and the common was kicked out of his own cave Wich had the eggs in it and albino was sitting in the cave the albino looked he was acting like they were his children once the common was kicked out. But I took the eggs out and ther wrigglers now had this happened to any of you.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

A couple of quick notes.

Male bn are territorial and they will fight over this.

FM bn can produce eggs every two weeks but it takes the males about am month to raise them to freeswimming and to release then from the cave. A fsecondary female wanting to spawn will sometime try to sneak into a cave when the make is out on a quick shot for food. She will eat the eggs or wigglers. When the dad returns he is no longer a dad and is ready to spawn again.

Also, it has been know to happen that a second fremale will spawn with a male on eggs for only a very short time/ Sometimes this will work and the dad is on two clutches of eggs. Most time he will not allow a female or other male into the cave when there are eggs/wigglers or about to be released freeswimmers.

The nly way to mitigate some of what you are seeing is a much bigger tank or fewer bn in the current one. But rarely do bn fighting kill each other.

 

[Benji k]

A couple of quick notes.

Male bn are territorial and they will fight over this.

FM bn can produce eggs every two weeks but it takes the males about am month to raise them to freeswimming and to release then from the cave. A fsecondary female wanting to spawn will sometime try to sneak into a cave when the make is out on a quick shot for food. She will eat the eggs or wigglers. When the dad returns he is no longer a dad and is ready to spawn again.

Also, it has been know to happen that a second fremale will spawn with a male on eggs for only a very short time/ Sometimes this will work and the dad is on two clutches of eggs. Most time he will not allow a female or other male into the cave when there are eggs/wigglers or about to be released freeswimmers.

The nly way to mitigate some of what you are seeing is a much bigger tank or fewer bn in the current one. But rarely do bn fighting kill each other.

Yeah it’s wierd the other male kicked the male out of his cave and pretended it was his

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I worked with bn for a few years before I switched over to the Hypancistrus. I prefer to works with groups of plecs rather than pairs or reverse trios. So I get to see a lot of neat stuff. The one thing I have yet to see is when a male traps another male in a cave and ultimatley kills it. With my first zebra group I found a dead and fraily starting to rot fish. I assumed it had died od natural causes. Maybe I was wrong.

My rule of thumb it to have close to or more caves than there are plecos in the tank. At the very least I want more caves than males. FMs will shelter in the caves but usually will not claim them and defend them.

And now a warning (from Death Becomes Her). My final BN spawn was over 100 eggs. The older/bigger they get, the more eggs the female can make.

 

[Benji k]

I worked with bn for a few years before I switched over to the Hypancistrus. I prefer to works with groups of plecs rather than pairs or reverse trios. So I get to see a lot of neat stuff. The one thing I have yet to see is when a male traps another male in a cave and ultimatley kills it. With my first zebra group I found a dead and fraily starting to rot fish. I assumed it had died od natural causes. Maybe I was wrong.

My rule of thumb it to have close to or more caves than there are plecos in the tank. At the very least I want more caves than males. FMs will shelter in the caves but usually will not claim them and defend them.

And now a warning (from Death Becomes Her). My final BN spawn was over 100 eggs. The older/bigger they get, the more eggs the female can make.

Yeah it did look like the male was trying to trap the other male but then he kicked him out and he looked after the fry. And yeah I have 3 store brought caves and 4 pvc caves with mesh on the inside to make it dark.