OK this is my first question

I have been fish keeping for 20 years, i have three planted tanks, in the 4ft tank i have amongst others a pair of long finned albino b/n plecs, they are mature they must be 2 years old by now, and up to just recently there was no babies or anything, anyway i introduced a few more caves, and then one day i saw the odd tiny albino, the thing is they never seem to get very old, i dont know what happens to them, ive seen two today and they arnt tiny they are i would say a month or two old, why dont i get loads like i do with the browns.

The tank is well planted, it has no other algae eaters cept apple snails and shrimps, i keep the browns seperate, other fish are tetras, betta, cardinals nothing more imposing than that.

Reg water changes, i put in veg but to be honest they dont seem to bother with it.

I have no space to put the pair in a tank on their own, and not sure it would make any difference.

Any ideas. Questions please feel free to ask, oh ive a fluval external 305 and the outlet is at the opposite end of the tank to the caves.

I think you might find that a few of your fry are inding up inside your filter or inside your betta lol. Also being a planted tank there mite be a few hiding. Albinos also are a weaker gene than the commons and usually have a higher loss rate

Hi,what filter have you got and what tetra apart from cardinals are in there? Also what substrate?

I would tend to agree that the Batta and filter intake are the most likely causes for dissapearing fry, have you attached anything around the intake to stop fry from getting in. Betta fish are primarily carnivorous fish so young fry will be very tempting for them, it's usually recommended that they are not kept with fish less than an inch long.

ive silver tip tetras as well, both the tetras and the betta are a recent addition to the tank, i was told they tend not to go for plecs young or otherwise, maybe the plecs only hatch one or two?

Your fish are eating the babies. Small bristlenose are absolutly defenceless, they have no concept of preditors and just go where they feel like. They are small and soft and even relativly small fish can make a meal of them. Next time they breed get them into a breeding net or something similar and that should solve your issues.

The other thing is that baby bristlenose are attracted to current so they are probably going to head towards the outlet of the filter.

There is 12 pages in my book devoted to rasing the fry and ways around the issues of breeding in a community tank. Well worth a look if you dont mind my biased opinion haha
www.keepingandbreedingbristlenose.com

i have experienced "vanishing" bristlenose fry like this before and although everyone says that they're not responsible the only thing in common with your tank is the shrimp! remember they are basically like carrion birds they will eat anything since i have got rid of the shrimp no more problems
i know breeders who house them together as normal practice but all i can do is relate my own experience folks

there is one case that i have heard that i believe of a shrimp attacking a live fish. and in that case we were talking about a sick, just out of the cave fry.

Shrimp are simply not strong enough to hold onto a healthy baby bristlenose. they will very quickly devour a dead one though. before jumping to the highly unlikely cause of your shrimp attacking and eating your babys, there are lots more explanations which are far more likely. Tetra are highly predatory fish, becasue of their size people do not believe me but look at the position of the mouth and eyes, faceing straight ahead, like all predatory fish, they hunt in packs and are able to take down animals larger than themselves. I mean pahrana are tetra, even cardinals are just mini parana. Also, bristlenose fry are sensitive little things and all of us have had a batch die off for unknown reasons. sudden changes in pH, ammonia spikes because of the increased bioload or even just being sucked into the filter. All of these are much more likely than the shrimp. once the fish were dead for whatever reason then the shrimp will def clean them up, but the are def not the cause of death.