Best food for panaque nigrolineatus?

[Kenneth tinnesen]

Hi all.
I have got a large L27 in my tank, hes about 11-12 inches, and seems to be doing fine. Hes in a 7x3x2,5 feet tank, together with other medium to large plecos, stingrays, uarus and an red tail gold arowana.
im feeding the fish once a day with shrimps, fishmeat, mussels, bloodworm and other foods, and i allways make sure, that there are potatoes, carots and/or peas for the planteaters in the tank. Offcourse i have several large pieces of wood in the tank, and it seems, that hes pretty much allways cheing on them. Hes not shy at all, and dont seem to mind, that hes blending in, and sometimes steels food from the other fish in the tank.

But dispite the amount of food, he allways seems to be a bit thin (not much, but u know, it wouldnt be bad for him to get a more full belly). so heres the question: What else can i do, to make sure, that hes getting sufficient food? Temp in the tank about 28 degres C., lots of current (About 8000 liters/hour) and well oxygenated (with an 800 liters/hour airpump and a large "airdish")

Ive had him for about 4 month, and i think he gained a little size, but its hard to tell how much.

Any opinions will be greatly apreciated.

Best regards
Kenneth Tinnesen
Denmark

[Janne]

I would avoid bloodworms for the Panaque but maybe he dont have a chance to eat of that food for the other fishes, if you dont see a lot of waiste from him in the aquarium he is not consuming the wood...you should see a lot of it and at least clean the tank once or twice monthly. If so you maybe need to put some softer wood in the aquarium, have you tried sweet potatoes? buy one large and put it in the aquarium
All other food you mention is fine so keep on feeding.

Janne

[taksan]

JBL pleco chips, fresh Zucchini, fresh cucumber, pumpkin, sweet potato and fresh palm wood.

[mrwickedweasel]

steer clear of any high protein foods. I would Recommend cucumber, sweet potato, potato, carrot, lettece, jbl wafers, and hikari wafers. I've also heard of people feeding, tomato's, and different type's of melons. Hope this helps

[MatsP]

Have a look at the article I wrote, which is in the like called "articles(1)" on the sidebar of this post.

--
Mats

[taksan]

Ok I've discovered something today and its very interesting.

I've been feeding boiled, soaked Palm wood for a while now with good success.
Yesterday I was talking with a friend in Peru who mentioned to me that the traps they bait for catching Titanics are baited with freshly cut palm trunk slabs not the harder wood on the outside. So yesterday I went out and cut down a big palm and cut the trunk into sections. The inside is very interesting with a soft inner core similar to pumpkin or Zucchini I sectioned off a few discs from the trunk including the core and because I was too afraid to simply dumb it in the tank I washed it and then microwaved it for 2 mins in the hope it might kill anything nasty but I did not soak or boil it it was moist and essentially freshly cut. Taking a deep breath I put it in the main Titanic tank and .... wow ! They demolished it ! And I mean immediately went to it and started eating as if it was Zucchini or a vegetable. Today its essentially gone and it was a large 30cm dia disc about 15cms thick !
We may have found the ultimate Panaque food and the correct way to feed it.