Raising Pleco Fry

Raising Pleco Fry
By Andrew Orchard 
Pleco fry can be difficult to raise when first taken from the parent aquarium. 
This is because the fry require a constant supply of food to survive.
I have had plenty of failures with fry dying off after I have taken them out of the parent cave to raise.
Some fry will survive if left in with the adults but it is only generally a handful that make it past the first month.
Pleco fry are generally taken from the parent cave when they have absorbed most of their egg sack and are free swimming. 
I have found a new method that improves pleco fry survival greatly which is a cheap option for the aquarium hobbyist breeder.
I use a ready made fry saver which is available at Bunnings being a Rain Harvesting Vent Cowl 100mm (pic below).
They cost around $8 each and are a perfect size and build to hold fry.
I sit the cowl into a piece of styrofoam which is cut to allow it to float in the aquarium. 
I have found it best to float the cowl near a source of current or use an air stone so that there is some water movement inside the cowl to prevent sediment build up on the bottom.
I place the fry into the floating cowl along with a small pice of driftwood which has been left in an established aquarium for sometime. 
The driftwood has an amount of biofilm on it that the pleco fry will graze on ensuring that they get a good start in life.
I then place raw spinach leaves into the cowl and watch to see that the fry are eating them.
The warm aquarium water slowly softens the spinach leaves making it easier for the pleco fry to eat them.
Spinach leaves are a great source of nutrition for pleco fry and they can live and grow happily for months on spinach leaves alone.
In addition to spinach leaves I place some soaked dry Indian almond leaves into the cowl.
I soak the dry leaves in aquarium water that I have washed a used sponge filter in so that the leaves develop biofilm from the filter mulm.
You can use dry leaves from other trees like oak, magnolia and fruit trees.
Just make sure the leaf you use has fallen off the tree and is totally brown.
This combination of spinach and soaked dry Indian almond leaves with biofilm is excellent for pleco fry to graze on.
Regular water changes are essential to keep the pleco fry healthy as there can be quite a lot of waste from a good batch of pleco fry.
Once the pleco fry are around a month old they can be moved into a fry raising aquarium if desired to continue their growth.
My fry raising aquarium is about 40 litres and contains driftwood.
I feed the month old pleco fry raw zucchini weighted down with a fork and a few protein pellets every day.
For my pleco fry tank I run an air driven sponge filter and keep the temperature at 28 degrees Celsius.
I do regular water changes and clean the filter often.
The zucchini must be replaced daily as it softens quickly in the warm aquarium water and appears fuzzy after a day.
Some pleco fry eat the zucchini skin while others eat the pith.
No lighting is required for a pleco raising aquarium because the fry tend to hide with too much light.
Better to have the fry comfortable and eating more often than have them hiding because it's too bright.
Once the pleco fry reach around 3 months of age they can be moved into a larger aquarium or sold off if they are large enough. 
As a general rule it is best not to mix different species of pleco fry because they have varying growth rates however I have space issues so I keep some species of fry together. 
Having a constant supply of food allows for all the fry to access food so competition between species is reduced. 
I have also recently been trialing growing royal whiptail fry in the cowl fry saver using the same method as the pleco fry and thus far the royal whiptail fry seem to be going well.
The beauty of using the cowl fry saver method is that you can have a number of them floating in the aquarium. 

This allows for different generations of pleco fry to be raised in each cowl fry saver.
I have found the cowl fry saver method to be very successful in raising pleco fry and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to give it a try.