Sometime before the holidays, a pair of my generic bristlenosed plecos dug a hole under one of the rocks in my 50G aquascape and produced a spawn of 15-30 baby plecos. I knew they were nesting because I could see the parents initially fanning the ceiling of the rock where they dug their cave, presumably keeping the water fresh around all of their eggs. A couple of weeks later I noticed a slew of baby plecos clutching to the top glass all around the tank.

They hung around the glass for several weeks, but now they seem to have dispersed throughout the tank. In the picture above you can see three plecos cleaning the top of the largest rock in my aquascape. Obviously, the fish are still not huge as they are dwarfed by an adult Amano Shrimp. If anyone has any suggestions on what to feed these guys to grow them up a bit faster, I’d love to know. So far, I’ve just been feeding them algae wafers, and I feed the other fish in the tank frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. Comments on anyone else’s pleco breeding experiences are welcome!

The holiday season has been really busy for me this year, so I haven’t been able to post near as much as I’d normally like to. Nevertheless, I did want to update everyone on the one aquascape that seems to be progressing along pretty well — my 50G Blyxa scape. I haven’t posted about this tank in almost three months, so if you were to look back at the last picture, just after rescaping, you’ll see that the Blyxa japonica has really taken over the scene, maybe too much so.

50G - 12/09/2009 (Click for larger image)

New additions to this aquarium include a colony of Apistogramma baenschi ‘Inka 50’, who I am hoping will breed. Speaking of breeding, the group of bristlenosed plecos have burrowed out a hole under the rock on the left side of the tank where there’s no hairgrass, and have already spawned once. The little black specks on the right wall of the aquarium are the baby plecos hanging out. They’ve survived for over a month now, so I’m hopeful that they’ll continue to grow to adulthood. Besides taming the monstrous Blyxa japonica, please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement!

I finally got past my resistance and tore down the “Fallen Tree” aquascape in my 50G. I really wanted an aquascape where I can use some nice stem plants, but the manzanita hardscape seen below really just needs a simple low-to-the-ground type design on the right side. The stem plants I had in there looked okay, but didn’t really work with the hardscape.

So, Wednesday evening I tore out all of the plants and hardscape, and made myself a new rockscape using the new rocks I collected from my friend’s backyard. In his neighborhood, construction of the homes sometimes involves dynamite to dig out for the foundation, which conveniently leaves mounds of quartz-based rocks all over the place. I thought a rock-dominated aquascape would allow me to use the stem plants more effectively because the rocks would hide the bottoms, allowing nicely trimmed tops to pop out from behind them.

Above, you can see what I came up with. The foreground is still all Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’, with a midground almost 100% comprised of Blyxa japonica. Blyxa aubertii is in the back-left with Limnophila repens var. ‘Mini’, Rotala sp. ‘Araguaia’, Ludwigia senegalensis, Pogostemon erectum, and Rotala mexicana var. ‘Araguaia’ making up the background. Comments welcome!

It’s been a few weeks since I replanted the 50G, and as you can see the plants have been growing quite well. The tank is definitely due for a trim right now, especially the Ludwigia brevipes on the left, and the Limnophila repens var. ‘Mini’ in the back left. I do have two notable additions to this aquascape. In the back-left, I added a number of Blyxa aubertii plants which were previously in my 75G aquarium.

Also, I was fortunate to get in on a fantastic group buy that GWAPA conducted to add 15 crystal red shrimp, and 15 crystal black shrimp to this aquarium. Below is a picture of one of the red ones, which I believe is a “tiger-tooth” because the one red band looks like two teeth coming down. I don’t know very much about grading the shrimp, and really don’t care, as I just think they’re quite striking inhabitants in a planted aquarium regardless of the grade.

So, hopefully, these shrimp will start a little breeding population in my 50G! Elsewhere in the aquarium, the hairgrass is starting to spread in the corners where I transplanted a few plants, and I’m generally pleased with the direction that it’s headed. I’m waiting on the stems on the right side to grow out a bit more and multiply, so that I can really focus on trimming them into new compact bushes of plants. Comments/critiques welcome!

My 50G had turned into quite the farm tank, but I’ve finally been able to reclaim it as an aquascapable aquarium. I really like the hardscape, so I’ve decided to leave that in place, but simply replant it with some different plants. Previously, the aquascape was dominated by Blyxa japonica, where now I’ve only retained that in the middle to the right of the large piece of wood.

I’ve added a number of stem plants, and I’m hoping to trim them into bushes, kind of dutch style, behind the rocks to the right. I’m still deciding whether or not to keep the Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’ in the foreground, or to rip it out and go with something more vintage like Glossostigma elatinoides. Comments welcome!