Feeding Problems... Help?

[Taridan]

Okay, a few things... firstly, I only feed one bio-gold pellet in the morning, and usually two at night. I recently bought some frozen brine shrimp, and between my male and my two females, tried to give them some of that last night (Did not feed them any pellets). I do know that Pea's can help with constipation. -problem- all of my betta's are stuffing themselves to the point where they were only partially interested in the shrimp I tried to give them last night.

So, my questions are these.

1) In both of my tanks, I have a pleko, and I've been told they like to eat shrimp pellets and algea waffers... problem a) I think my male is also nibbling on these once they've softened up, and thus is swelling his belly. I can't -not- feed the pleko, because if he doesn't have at least 3 shrimp pellets, he'll start to eat my java fern. Anyone know of any way I can perhaps cut back on George eating the softer pleko food? I don't -see- him eating it, but his belly is often full, and I don't want to have to worry about his gut busting.

2) In the female 10 gallon tank, I have a pleko and a Mystery snail. The females are much more obvious about eating off the bottom, often just swimming there and watching the food float to the bottom before swimming down to eat it off the glass 'rocks'. You know, the ones that are flat on one side rounding up into about a half circle? I've removed the one decoration, as the pleko was hiding in there and -never- coming out, hoping that might help, but again, I don't want the females eating the pleko's food and stuffing themselves.

Any ideas, tips, suggestions or thougths on this will be appreciated.

 

[england]

bettas are fussy eaters..........................how long u had em?...........thoses plecs are they common ones??
they get huge for 1 .......second plecs are nocturnal and need places to hide from light etc give them places to hide

 

[Taridan]

I've had george for about 2 1/2 years now, though up until... hmm, about a month / month and a half ago he was in a one gallon Betta bowl, without any other fish. At that point when I got the 30 gallon from my fiance I added George to it, then about... a half a month ago? I added tucker, who had been in with my fiance's Oscar, who had started to pick on him, thus, the moving of him. There are two ornaments in his tank that Tucker likes, one looks sort of like roots, the other is a sort of smoothed over archway. Tucker is about 4-5 inches long.

The two girls are relatively new, I bought them on Saturday the 25th. The tank is a ten gallon tank that my friend no longer wanted, and the pleko came with it, and is about 2 inches long. There is an ornament in that tank as well, just not a small curvy hollow one that had been in there. The pleko would wedge himself into an opening maybe about the size of a quarter that went from one side of the ornament to the other, and I couldn't see -any- part of his body and I worried about him laying there and eating and growing and eventually getting stuck, hence the ornament change.

and yes, I'm fairly certain they are common pleko's, which at the time we got them Tucker was going to grow in the 55 gallon with the Oscar, and the second I was going to put in the 30 gallon with george, however, the Oscar didn't agree with those ideas and decided he didn't like tucker.

 

[england]

with my catfish i have made caves for them in 1 tank you never see my common plec til lights out in other tank i have a floating plastic plant which filters out the light from above which seems to bring out the plec in day or night.

 

[Taridan]

I appreciate the input, but it really doesn't help me solve the problem of my betta's nibbling on the Pleko's food.

 

[fawnmodel]

Maybe feed the bettas first until full, and feed once a day? Once they are full, feed the pleco immediately.
Just a suggestion. Nothing wrong with feeding bettas once a day.

 

[Taridan]

only problem with that fawn, is that they are bottomless pits. Once when I first got the male I accidently messed up with the bio-gold container and dropped 7 pellets in... this was after his two in the morning, and he ate ALL of them. >.< I tried feeding them at the same time last night, George first then the pleko food behind him while he was busy eating, and this seemed to help, but he still must have eaten some of it off the bottom during the night, as his belly was distended again today. *Sigh*

 

[soritan]

I had this problem with my male for quite some time... eventually, I realized it was flat out impossible to stop him from overfeeding if there was food in there he could eat at all. Eventually, I hand fed everyone who lived in that tank. When people talk of putting bettas in with other fish, overfeeding is one of the problems that I attempt to mention, simply because so few people realize it as a problem (because they tend to focus only on aggression).

 

[Taridan]

How do you manage to Hand Feed a pleko? Sorry and yeah, I'd heard people talk about the agression and stuff, but never heard much of anything about the food problem. I was thinking the LFS has 'fry nets' that are like a 6x6x12(?) square of of a mesh type thing... anyone ever seen these? I was thinking maybe in the evenings when I feed I could put george in one of those and feed him, then add the pleko food, then either let george out right before I go to bed, or right as i get up? (If i do it at night he'll be in that for... 7 hours maybe? then loose in the tank the rest of the time?