My Mistake

[paul_219]

I added a big size of cucumber for my 2 plecos in my tank, like half a cucumber. was it a big piece and will it hurt my plecos.? They are common plecos. May it be a overfeeding?

 

[SuperColey1]

Vastly over feedung them. lol make sure you take it out before it is in there 24 hours, and next time just half a quartered piece i.e. 1/8th of a courgette (zuchini) is more nutritious than cucumber

Andy

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How large are the pleco's? When i feed cucumber to my pleco's, i get a large/long cucumber and usually cut it in half or into thirds and then slice the sections down the middle and add weights to them to make them sink into the tanks. My largest common pleco can easy get through one of these large peices in a single night, i don't think common pleco's will overfeed on cucumber, once they've had enough they'll leave it alone.
The only problem with cucmber is that if its left in the water too long it'll start to go all gross (will turn rather bad within 2days), so i would take it out after 24 hours and replace it with a fresh new peice or feed the pleco's something else. Feeding cucumber a lot if fine for common plecos, just try to make sure they still get a varied diet- make sure they still get algae wafers as if they are fed cucumber all the time and nothing else they'll get hooked on it and pay little interest in any other type of food. Algae wafers made with spirulina (sp?) algae are the best as they have a lot of vitamins and minerals, while cucumber is mostly vitamin C, water and sugar and not much else. A large cooked prawn every now (every week or couple of weeks is fine) and then is good to make sure they are getting enough protein in their diet if you feed them mostly cucumber and not much else .

 

[paul_219]

Ok Thanks for your replies.

 

[Darkstar]

i get a large/long cucumber and usually cut it in half or into thirds and then slice the sections down the middle and add weights to them to make them sink into the tanks. My largest common pleco can easy get through one of these large peices in a single night, i don't think common pleco's will overfeed on cucumber, once they've had enough they'll leave it alone.

Agreed, you're not overfeeding him.

 

[paul_219]

When i remove the old slice of cucumber should i add another one or i should put another one after 1 week?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When i remove the old slice of cucumber should i add another one or i should put another one after 1 week?

Its up to you really, you can put in a fresh peice or feed them something else, its fine as long as you keep their diet relatively varied .
A common plecos diet should mostly focus on greens with a little bit of meat like cooked shellfish meat every now and then as they are omnivorous plecos which lean much more towards the herbivore end of the omnivore scale. A para pleco would be an example of an omnivore pleco which has a lot more meaty rather than greens orientated omnivorous diet.
Young common plecos are almost solely herbivores when young, spending a great deal of time eating algae, but as they grow older and larger their diet gets a bit meatier to help get the protein they need into their diet to support their large size .

 

[dane261]

i tend to put courgette in the tank twice a week as a treat but algae waffers daily the line up at the front of the tank bang on 9 pm waiting for them

 

[LisaLQ]

Veggies 2-3 times a week, wafers in between - wafers are not supposed to be their main diet, only a top up

My common rarely/never gets any meat as I have a royal and a hypostomus in there that are purely veg eating, but the wafers have some protein in so that's no big deal. But if you only keep commons then of course add some protein once a week, not too often though.

 

[Mystix212]

I feed mine, cucumber, zuchini, algae wafers, flakes, and bloodworms once or sometimes twice a week in small amounts. They're Bn's.