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I have a pair of bristle nose plecos that laid a clutch of eggs near my heater. The male is doing a great job fanning and protecting them.

Anyone know how long it will take for the eggs to hatch?
What do baby plecos eat?
They're in a community tank in my lobby so I'm guessing the fry will get eaten but it's still cool watching him be a good dad.

Thanks!

From my experience, they always laid in some type of cave. The eggs should hatch in around 7 and more than likely the other fish have a snack. I don't really have anything else with my breeders and after the 14 days I find some babies on the glass. Then I take the cave and dad and put them a 5 gallon. Eventually the babies come out in search of food, then I return dad back to his tank.

You can collect the eggs with a Turkey Baster vans hatch them in a jar with an airstone.

Baby bristlenose plecos will eat the same algae wafers as the adults. We also feed our plecos zucchini, we dehydrated a ton of it last year. And they need driftwood to chew on to help get the correct gut bacteria to keep them healthy. If you want, I can bring you a bag of zucchini to the next meeting, or if you are in this area sometime before then.

What is the benefit of dehydrating zucchini? I have 2 large plecos that I give a slice of fresh zucchini every night. They love it. They will eat most of it through the night. I leave it in the tank and by the next evening, all that is left is the rind. I then replace it with a fresh slice. These are about 5 or 6 years old and have never had driftwood. I've read they like to chew on it but have not put any in my tank.

We dehydrated it just for storage purposes. We grew some in the garden last year and weren't able to use or eat it fast enough. Now we have 3 gallon bags of it. That's really the only benefit to it.

Will the plecos eat the dehydrated as well as the fresh?

Yes, it just takes a little while to soften up. I feed it in the morning and it is usually gone when I get home from work.

I feed mine french green beans, all of them. I take a can of beans, rinse several times and throw in a freezer bag. Feed accordingly.