Kaveman
- #1
So, I kept a 50 gallon tank when I was living with my elderly dad. Covid came along, I couldn't work from home, so the family thing got shaken up, and I moved out when replaced by my retired brother. My new living arrangements, though, were tenuous at first, so I didn't move the 50G with me, i just told my brother what to do... And he followed my instructions, and didn't do badly for a whole year, but it's my responsibility to mind my own hobby, so 2 months ago, he & I moved it to my place.
The fish were fewer in number than when I left the home, but the transport was completely successful. There was a great upheaval in the lives of the fish, but nothing much worse than when they were sold at the pet store, except time was a bit stretched out, more sediment to settle, significant water change (significant amount of their prior water transported, too), Stress Coat added to hopefully help their disrupted lives. A little food )also to alleviate stress), then, I just let them settle in.
Among the survivors, a large pleco, one of my oldest tropical fish. And I could see he was fat. He had been rather overfed. No biggie.
In nature, animals get their meals at irregular intervals. Lots of feast or famine in the wild.
There are differing diet preferences among the different types of plecos. Some lean vegetarian, perhaps, but some are probably more carnivorous than we might at first suppose. They are not predatory, per se, they find dead stuff that sinks. You know how a container of water, like, say a dog bowl, gets that slime if the water is not freshened often enough (and, yet, dogs happily drink from the crotch of a tree or a toilet). That's basically a little ecosystem, with yeast, and who knows what all. Plecos consume that, too.
Standard flake food is very much appreciated by plecos. I try to offer all my fish a bit of variety. Those sinking algea tablets have ingredients to promote growth, though, so I give them, but less often.
Anyway, back to my fat pleco. Not only did it look like the Sébastien Cabot of fishes, it was expelling a continuous string of feces. I had every reason to know this was not a starving fish. He just sucks the sides of the tank, and "exhales" water through its gils, with his big fat white underbelly flattened on the glass. I fed the other fish in the 50G community, but no sinking tablets. I also have a bunch of cories in there, so they can do their thing, and we're just gonna avoid any classic pleco food.
Days turned into weeks. Still the pleco was producing this endless stool. And it was dark in color - this was not clear bioslurm licked off the glass, digested through a fish's intestinal system, it was as good as yours or mine, just about 3mm across. Gracious! What were they feeding you?!?
So, anyway, at some point a month and a half ago, I figured it's time for another water change, i could see the water was not too clear, though I knew from testing that the water was good, but it was time, and I would add back in an additional filtration thing I imitated from a friend, using a power head and a plastic beverage bottle stuffed with floss and some holes drilled, to help clarify the water. I'd done this before, but I hadn't asked my brother to worry about it.. The undergravel filtration worked fine, but the water was not so clear.
So, I put this in place, I go on vacation, I come home a week later, everybody's alive and happy, the water is crystal clear, and...
Mr. French over there now looks like Michael Phelps. And he doesn't have a tube of excrement getting squeezed out continuously like a Play Do barbershop.
WHAT I'M FINALLY GETTING AROUND TO SAYING IS, the fish sucking glass is a fish filtering water, tiny bits of food are acquired, filtered between tiny little bumps that look like taste buds on his lips. After the undergravel filtration system, the pleco was the tank's second biggest filtration system, and he was actually overfed because of the absence of water polishing.
However, now that the polisher (the NEW Second Biggest filtration system) is in place, I again must actively put food in especially for the large pleco
The fish were fewer in number than when I left the home, but the transport was completely successful. There was a great upheaval in the lives of the fish, but nothing much worse than when they were sold at the pet store, except time was a bit stretched out, more sediment to settle, significant water change (significant amount of their prior water transported, too), Stress Coat added to hopefully help their disrupted lives. A little food )also to alleviate stress), then, I just let them settle in.
Among the survivors, a large pleco, one of my oldest tropical fish. And I could see he was fat. He had been rather overfed. No biggie.
In nature, animals get their meals at irregular intervals. Lots of feast or famine in the wild.
There are differing diet preferences among the different types of plecos. Some lean vegetarian, perhaps, but some are probably more carnivorous than we might at first suppose. They are not predatory, per se, they find dead stuff that sinks. You know how a container of water, like, say a dog bowl, gets that slime if the water is not freshened often enough (and, yet, dogs happily drink from the crotch of a tree or a toilet). That's basically a little ecosystem, with yeast, and who knows what all. Plecos consume that, too.
Standard flake food is very much appreciated by plecos. I try to offer all my fish a bit of variety. Those sinking algea tablets have ingredients to promote growth, though, so I give them, but less often.
Anyway, back to my fat pleco. Not only did it look like the Sébastien Cabot of fishes, it was expelling a continuous string of feces. I had every reason to know this was not a starving fish. He just sucks the sides of the tank, and "exhales" water through its gils, with his big fat white underbelly flattened on the glass. I fed the other fish in the 50G community, but no sinking tablets. I also have a bunch of cories in there, so they can do their thing, and we're just gonna avoid any classic pleco food.
Days turned into weeks. Still the pleco was producing this endless stool. And it was dark in color - this was not clear bioslurm licked off the glass, digested through a fish's intestinal system, it was as good as yours or mine, just about 3mm across. Gracious! What were they feeding you?!?
So, anyway, at some point a month and a half ago, I figured it's time for another water change, i could see the water was not too clear, though I knew from testing that the water was good, but it was time, and I would add back in an additional filtration thing I imitated from a friend, using a power head and a plastic beverage bottle stuffed with floss and some holes drilled, to help clarify the water. I'd done this before, but I hadn't asked my brother to worry about it.. The undergravel filtration worked fine, but the water was not so clear.
So, I put this in place, I go on vacation, I come home a week later, everybody's alive and happy, the water is crystal clear, and...
Mr. French over there now looks like Michael Phelps. And he doesn't have a tube of excrement getting squeezed out continuously like a Play Do barbershop.
WHAT I'M FINALLY GETTING AROUND TO SAYING IS, the fish sucking glass is a fish filtering water, tiny bits of food are acquired, filtered between tiny little bumps that look like taste buds on his lips. After the undergravel filtration system, the pleco was the tank's second biggest filtration system, and he was actually overfed because of the absence of water polishing.
However, now that the polisher (the NEW Second Biggest filtration system) is in place, I again must actively put food in especially for the large pleco