Bristlenose fry, poss. feeding issues

Melander,
It seems your Fish haven't seen your calendar of future events!
Seriously though, you will be totally surprised at what newly-released Ancistrus fry will find in a tank for sustenance.
I would be a little concerned in case you have any larger community Fish which might make a meal of them, but if there aren't any the fry should be able to glean enough food from what the others miss.

Tetra make (what I'm told is) a very good Holiday Feeding Block and a friend of mine left one in a tank and it lasted a whole fortnight - so that might be an option as they could get in 'on the act' after lights out.

Otherwise you could try relying on nature and leave on the tank lights all the time and hope to get a good build-up of algae which both the adults and fry will graze on in your absence, but they really are (as already stated) very industrious feeders and do find food which doesn't appear to be there at all!

I have several broods in tanks (including LDA-16s) which graze the glass, gravel and plants (strangely not the cucumber) and when you look their little bellies are nicely round - so they're getting their nourishment there OK.
I would be concerned about leaving anything of a vegetable nature in the tank as it will deteriorate in your absence, but if you could get your girlfriend to change it every other day you could leave in a slice of cucumber, I have been recently giving all my Plecos slices of Kiwi Fruit and that goes down well too.

Don't worry, you'll come home to some fry - and even if none makes it from this spawning, fear not - once they've started they will continue!

One last word of warning - baby Plecos are little devils at going places where they didn't ought to so if you have either an internal or external filter you should try to make the intake 'Pleco Fry Proof'

John

It's far from being totally advisable, but that was a suggestion to give Melander's fry a head-start.

Having said that - apart from a possibly unwanted build-up of algae he shouldn't have any long-term bad effects, after all, fish do not sleep in the way we understand it, although my Clown Loaches certainly seem to 'bed down' for the night.

John

Melander,
These are LDA-16s, they are like a smaller version of the common or garden Bristlenose (whatever they turn out to be - seemingly a lot of controversy on those still) but these are almost certainly Ancistrus. They are sort of mottled brown and orange and do have very minor spotting, but nowhere near as pronounced as the ordinary lads and the spots are a subtle tone of orange.
Look up LDA-16 on Planet Catfish, they must be there.
John

I have had a look at the Planet Catfish picture and that looks nothing like mine - one of these days I shall have to try to take some pictures...

John