Pleco dung

[RWC]

I'm fairly new to owning a tank. Is it possible that my 1-2 inch clown pleco poops more than the other 16 fish in the tank combined? I've been doing daily water changes to fight ich and noticed that the wood that he clings to is surrounded by tremenedous amounts of poop.

[Richard B]

What comes out is proportional to what goes in!

If the other fish only get (for example) a pinch of flake to eat once a day it is far less than a clown plec who munches on wood whenever he feels like it - so to answer your question - yes!

Also it may collect around the wood as water movement is probably less creating a sort of "dead spot".

I also presume the water changes are not the sole method of treating Ich - some standard tank medicine/treatment is being used & the water changes are only following on from this?

[RWC]

I'm doing water changes to suck up the ich after it falls off to reduce the cysts. I'm treating with ich guard as well. I also had an ammonia problem prior to ich so I was doing frequent changes to get that corrected.

I guess you are right about the pleco can eat wood all day where the other fish only get flake food twice a day. It just seems like this pleco must poop every 15 minutes.

[Richard B]

I'm doing water changes to suck up the ich after it falls off to reduce the cysts. I'm treating with ich guard as well. I also had an ammonia problem prior to ich so I was doing frequent changes to get that corrected.

I guess you are right about the pl*co can eat wood all day where the other fish only get flake food twice a day. It just seems like this pl*co must poop every 15 minutes.

Some pleco species - (actually thinking about it, particularly wood munching panaque) are absolute eating/pooping machines!

[MatsP]

Some pl*co species - (actually thinking about it, particularly wood munching panaque) are absolute eating/pooping machines!

Partly, this is because they do not receive much energy from the wood - there is a lot of "solid" waste in the wood, that is not being consumed by the fish. Yes, my Panaque maccus tank is also full of black bits of consumed sawdust.

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Mats