Feeding Panaque Canned Heart Of Palm....

[-germ-]

Does anyone do it or have done it in the past?
Read on PC about it and it seemed a reasonable suggestion, although i'm a little worried about the presence of salt in the can water.
Plan to give it a go with my panaque maccus tonight, but before i do i'd like peoples opinions on its use....

1) Is it worth it when compared to courgette and other suitable veg (its bloody expensive for a canned good and dearer than a courgette, doesn't last long out the can either?)
2) The salt, best way to deal with this? I just planned to leave it to soak for an hour or two, changing the water occasionally?
3) Are there any other risks or reasons for me not to feed this?

Thanks for any replies....

 

[-germ-]

Bump....

 

[nurglespuss]

Hmmm toughy this. Ive seen this fed to silver dollars with some success however....

It did cloud the water a little as, being a canned good, it breaks down quite quickly after introduction..

The salt should not be a problem, so long as you only give them a little, and wash/soak/pat dry with kitchen towell.

Also, any not in brine available?

 

[nmonks]

1) Is it worth it when compared to courgette and other suitable veg (its bloody expensive for a canned good and dearer than a courgette, doesn't last long out the can either?)

No idea why you want to use them. Eat the hearts-of-palm yourself. Panaque are the least picky catfish out there. If it's either green or made of wood, they'll eat it. My specimen goes wild for a piece of wood dragged out of a clean pond, where it's been rotting for a while. Failing that, a bit of beech or some other hardwood taken from an unsprayed garden or wilderness. Otherwise, try root vegetables, salads of all kinds, melon rinds, etc. My girl is tucking into some lettuce stems and cucumber right now.

2) The salt, best way to deal with this? I just planned to leave it to soak for an hour or two, changing the water occasionally?

Forget about it. Even if the piece of food you put in there was a solid lump of salt, the effect on the salinity of the aquarium would be almost zero. If it's too salty to eat, your catfish simply won't eat it. Salt will diffuse out of the food into the aquarium in no time at all, so it's not like your catfish is going to dehydrate itself by eating it.

3) Are there any other risks or reasons for me not to feed this?

Cost. Pointlessness. That sort of thing. Do your Panaque a favour and find her a nice bit of gently rotting wood to chomp on. That's really what they like best of all. Hikari Algae Wafers are the next best thing. They also like the odd bit of mussel or prawn, but don't go nuts with meaty foods.

Cheers, Neale

 

[-germ-]

Thanks very much NMonks.
I gave it a go, one of the main reaons for wanting to try it was my obese gouramis who eat the vast majority of anything green that is added to the tank including algae wafers, courgette etc. The plecos don't even get a chance when i feed prawn and other meats.

They ignored the heart of palm after a few inquisitive nips, while the Plecos tucked in (but didn't go as wild for it as i'd hoped) at least i have a food source that the Gourami won't touch.
Then again the price is ridiculous, especially considering the amount you get (and the smell) which can supposedly only be stored for two days.

I've just done a search to attempt to find a paper supporting the positive aspect of feeding panaques wood and actually, from what i can find and interpret (with my lack of patience) the evidence is slim and contradicts what i had previously read and led me to believe that a wood based diet was beneficial;
http/www-heb.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/congress/...orepdf/toba.pdf
http/pages.towson.edu/nelson/Panaque/manaus.html


When you mention rotting wood, how would i safely prepare this for my plecos?

Many thanks. Gb.

 

[nmonks]

As for wood and Panaque. I've discussed this with the scientists who've written those papers. What the lab work shows is that *unlike* other loricariid catfish, Panaque can maintain body weight, and even grow, when fed nothing but wood. Hypostomus (used for comparison) cannot, and while they will consume the wood, they cannot extract enough energy to survive in the long term; i.e., they lose weight over time.

What the scientists believe is that being able to digest wood gives Panaque a means to survive the "poor" season (low water level season) when there's little alternative good about. The other catfish must basically starve, but Panaque can chug along quite nicely eating wood. Since there's always lots of wood in the Amazon, this is a very cool trick. Panaque don't *just* eat wood, they eat lots of other things in the wild, but wood is important at certain times of the year when it may be the only thing they're eating. Dissections of wild fish have shown that their guts will, at these times, contain nothing other than wood.

In the aquarium, there's no question wood is important. One of the scientists I communicated with observed that all the Panaque specimens he had been sent by aquarists had died prematurely and showed signs of fat around the internal organs, something never seen with wild fish. He believes that too much protein is bad for them. Certainly, when this sort of "fatty degeneration" has been observed in other fishes, it is often a sign of poor diet.

Bottom line, Panaque should always have wood available. It doesn't matter what wood or how you present it because they digest the lignin itself. What they don't want is anything with resin in it (i.e., no soft woods). So long as the wood isn't sprayed with anything, you're good to go; but aquarium bogwood is probably the safest thing if you're at all in doubt.

Cheers, Neale

My girl, aged about 16:

 

[-germ-]

I get the feeling that this is how aquarium myths are made.... anyhow.
After looking at the papers i got the impression that wood while a suitable diet for them, obviously wasn't the be all and end all. So the ability to digest wood, at its simplest, is a survival mechanism?
I tend to not feed them much protein due to the gourami issue, i'm fairly certain the gourami will be dying early; due to fatty liver or something related to over feeding.
Although i'm doing my best to keep them on a diet at the moment.

Cheers for the advice and info, its much appreciated.
GB

Ps; Lovely pleco.