In captivity this species hasn't been bred very often, but it is possible. The Following breeding experience has been made as a member in the former club AFC - Austrian Plecos.
The most important is to have a harmonizing pair. The size of male and female can be quite different. To get this species to spawn it's important to feed them protein rich, so that male and female are fat. In the tank should be several breeding caves in various sizes to choose from. In our experience, P. leopardus prefers quite small caves, compared to the body size. In most cases, male and female don't even fit together in the cave at once.
Once the tank is set up for breeding and the pair is fed fat, the water should be kept for some time quite warm, around 30 °C. After a phase of warm water, it helps to put the heating completely of for several days, and change with colder and soft water. The temperature can drop till around 20 - 22 °C. Always observe if the animals do well with the cold temperatures.
The male starts to hunt behind the female, to push her into the cave he desires. Tunneling can take several days. In that phase it is important not to annoy or stress the pair, by handling in the tank, doing water changes, feeding or similar. Best is to leave the pair alone until you can see the female out of the cave.
After some days it can be, that the female spawned and the male takes care of the egg clutch in the cave. The clutches are relatively large and can count 200 - 500 eggs. The temperature should be raised up again, that the larvae can develop good in the eggs. After 6 - 7 days the larvae hatch. It is best to seperate the fry after hatching into several large breeding boxes.
It is really important not to wait to long to separate the fry into groups of 10 - 20 pieces per breeding box. This means a lot of space for raising but this way it can also be decided how much youngsters should be raised. The separations of the youngsters is important, because the fry will deform and develop bad if not. If bad water quality or bite-attacks of the siblings cause these deformities is not known by us, but can be mostly avoided when separating them in smaller groups. Clean water through a lot of waterchanges are now really important, but should start after the yolk sac is used up, which should normally take a week.
The babies can be fed with protein rich food. It doesn't matter if it's frozen or processed food. Mossels should be avoided in the first months. Snail soft granulate and Krill soft granulate do their work really well, also with conditioning the breeding pair for spawning.
The fry grow rather slow and need perfect maintenance to develope in a good way. After a year they should be big enough to give away or put them in bigger tanks. As long as they are small they should only be kept in smaller grow out tank, to control the food intake.
