Healthy Pleco?

[paul_219]

How can i know if my pleco is healthy and eating well. I aint adding for him any food except a slice os cucumber per week. I aint finding other food for him? Will the algea be enough in the tank for him to feed on.

 

[nmonks]

Cucumber isn't nutritious at all. It's mostly water. Courgette (zucchini), sweet potato, carrot and tinned peas are much better. Blanched curly lettuce is good too, but iceberg lettuce is useless.

In any event, it's important to remember most plecs are omnivores not herbivores. Augment their diet with algae wafers, catfish pellets, chopped seafood such as mussels, and even the occasional small piece of fish meat, such as whitebait or lancefish. In the wild they will be eating a very wide variety of things, and it's a good idea to replicate that in captivity too.

Cheers, Neale

 

[paul_219]

How can i know if is fine and feeding good and that there is enought of algea for him in the tank?

 

[nmonks]

Don't rely on algae. There will never be enough in an aquarium for a plec to survive. Put in potato, carrot, sweet potato, courgette, celery, broccoli... really anything! There should be some in the tank most of the time. A small slice to start with. By the next day, you should see the vegetable has been eaten. There will usually also be lots of faeces!

Sometimes you need to leave the vegetables in the tank for a few days to become soft. This will not harm the water quality! It may look messy, but don't worry about that. Just remove anything too soft and messy using a net, turkey baster or siphon.

Plecs are omnivores. They enjoy lots of meaty foods too. Prawns, mussels, small pieces of fish will all go down well.

Cheers, Neale

How can i know if is fine and feeding good and that there is enought of algea for him in the tank?

 

[raptorrex]

Plecs are omnivores. They enjoy lots of meaty foods too. Prawns, mussels, small pieces of fish will all go down well.

Cheers, Neale

How can i know if is fine and feeding good and that there is enought of algea for him in the tank?

the plecs were always the first to my Crayfish moult too. they do love their protein and that's a fact.
nmonks makes the point about leaving in veg till it has really softened, ie gone off. this is really quite important, many plecos cant digest all the veg until this happens, though they may still rasp at it, as they do not have the enzymes and bacteria to do the job.

 

[nmonks]

Precisely so. I keep Panaque, which is one of the few catfish that can digest cellulose (and wood) without worrying about the plant food being soft. But most of the others -- Hypostomus, Pterygoplichthys, Ancistrus, etc. -- need the food to be either somewhat soft and rotten or blanched first. Zapping in the microwave works great. Tinned vegetables can also work well, particularly tinned peas, which most plecs seem to go wild about (as do a lot of other fish, even pufferfish!).

Lots of people complain their plec doesn't eat vegetables, but then it turns out they're putting the food in at night and taking it out the next day! That's just not long enough.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks makes the point about leaving in veg till it has really softened, ie gone off. this is really quite important, many plecos cant digest all the veg until this happens, though they may still rasp at it, as they do not have the enzymes and bacteria to do the job.

 

[raptorrex]

i never thought of tinned peas, though a give fresh(frozen) after they are peeled, tinned carrots too never occurred to me. perhaps i have been too hung up on the "natural thing", to see the advantages. Cheers Neale, ill give it a try.

 

[paul_219]

Thanks for ur replies.