Little panaque soon to be TITAN?

[ColumbianChocolate]

Which panaque would you say this little fella is? Hes a bit tatty at the mo but hopefully will be fine in a few weeks when the fins repair themselves

[taksan]

That is a starving emaciated sick L203 .... shocking to see a fish like that in such poor condition.

[Loracidlover]

In fairness the condition isn't that bad, the eyes still have a healthy bulge, and the split fins will heal rapidly if the water conditions are good.

[ColumbianChocolate]

Good job I bought it then a few days ago then. Remember we are all catfish lovers here Its belly is not sunken and its swimming about fine, happy, eating well and its only a little baby at 3". So would everyone agree its an L203?

[MatsP]

L203 looks right to me - certainly, it's a large Panaque of some sort - for this point in time, it's not that important exactly which variety - if you can rescue it back to good health, you'll have a few years to figure out what it is before you need a heated pond...

I think what Taksan was trying to say isn't that you shouldn't have bought it, but that it shouldn't have been sold like that... It's a shame when you see fish in shops that are badly starved.

It's also, generally, a bad idea to buy fish out of pity - because it encourages the wrong behaviour in the shop. It's like giving a dog treats when it's peed on the floor or some such. If you get the fish at good discount because it's not healthy, that may be OK - Richard B got a skinny Amblyceps (?) for free when we were in a shop together - that's not benefiting the shop in any way - and if you get it at less than half price because it's unhealthy, then the shop isn't making much money off the fish either... So that may be acceptable - but bear in mind also that poor health fish are more susceptible to illness, and once something like white-spot or velvet breaks out in the tank, it may attack other fish...

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Mats

[taksan]

Yeah whoever sold that fish needs a good swift kick in the behind. It needs worming urgently and its terribly thin. Its definitely a Titanic..... with care in about a year it will look like this ....

[matthewfaulkner]

I'm sorry to say it's a terribly stunted fish. It's eyes are far too large and the body proportions are wrong, it's probably had about 2 years of no growth. I think the emaciated look that Taksan describes is due to this.

[ColumbianChocolate]

Ok thanks guys. The shop sold it too me for next to nothing, so they are not benefiting. It has a tank of its own with plenty of wood, heat, filtration and aeration so fingers crossed over the next couple of weeks that it makes it through. Hopefully I will be able to post a photo of it in a couple of years!

[taksan]

Ok thanks guys. The shop sold it too me for next to nothing, so they are not benefiting. It has a tank of its own with plenty of wood, heat, filtration and aeration so fingers crossed over the next couple of weeks that it makes it through. Hopefully I will be able to post a photo of it in a couple of years!

But what are you going to feed it ?
Panaques despite what everyone seems to think ...cannot digest wood.

[ColumbianChocolate]

I make my own fish food lots of blended veg and white fish. Little chunks of fresh cucumber etc.. Is there anything in particular you would suggest for its condition?

[MatsP]

I find both courgette and sweet potato much better food that cucumber, but your blended food sounds good - as long as you go light on the white fish.

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Mats

[2wheelsx2]

Sweet potato or yam (depending on which side of the pond you're on) with the orange flesh is universally loved my all my plecos, even some of my Hypans, and adored by my Panaque. Once you get rid of whatever parasites it has and feed it lots, it will hopefully recover.

[andywoolloo]

best of luck nursing him back to health, or as much as you can post stunting. I 'd like to see pics of his progress along the way if you don't mind!

[nvcichlids]

But what are you going to feed it ?
Panaques despite what everyone seems to think ...cannot digest wood.

I always had seen mine knawing on the wood and they wear it down to nothing. If they cannot digest it, why are they eating it? Do you recommend NOT keeping wood with them for this purpose...

this is news to me and want to ensure health!

[MatsP]

There's a user by the name "dpgerman", who studied the digestion of large Panaques, and the conclusion is, briefly put:
The fish gnaw on wood, but they don't digest the wood itself, but get their nutrition from microorganisms and breakdown products in the wood, not the wood itself. Yes, the gut contains bacteria that breaks down wood, but it's incidental from "chewing" the wood, not part of their own digestive system. Apparently, stained wood was used to identify how long it stays in their body, and something like 40 minutes can be the time from "entry" to "exit".

One part here:
http://pd.bio.uci.edu/ee/dgerman/images ... _print.pdf
http://pd.bio.uci.edu/ee/dgerman/images ... _print.pdf

It's pretty heavy-going, but it can let you know how these fish feed...

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Mats

[matthewfaulkner]

If they cannot digest it, why are they eating it? Do you recommend NOT keeping wood with them for this purpose...

The consumption of the wood is a result of Panaque tooth shape and preferred feeding surface. They rasp wood for the algae/biofilm on it's surface and organisms that live within it's outermost surfaces. They've developed this due to competition for food, and exploited a different feeding medium.

It's been a while since I've read German's paper but I think his main reasons why they don't digest wood are they don't have a specialised digestive tract and the fast transit of food (<4 hours).

Having wood in the tank (and the right sort) is still necessary because it is naturally a large component of their diet (25-50% of gut analysis).

[nvcichlids]

Thanks Mats and Matthew. I will read those articles tomorrow that you posted Mats. I am greatful for the info as I hope to keep all my fish as healthy as possible!

[taksan]

One of the foods I've been very successful feeding my Titanic's with has been a home made paste made out of spirilinia powder, carnivore wafers, brine shrimp, bloodworm, spinich and mashed zuchinni. I mix it all up in a blender adding a little eggwhite to hold it all together. It becomes a thick paste which I smear over bits of driftwood in the tank with a butter knife.

[nvcichlids]

One of the foods I've been very successful feeding my Titanic's with has been a home made paste made out of spirilinia powder, carnivore wafers, brine shrimp, bloodworm, spinich and mashed zuchinni. I mix it all up in a blender adding a little eggwhite to hold it all together. It becomes a thick paste which I smear over bits of driftwood in the tank with a butter knife.

very interesting! Could you post the actual amounts you use of each or atleast PM me a recipe. I would like to try that for mine!~

[Shane]

I always had seen mine gnawing on the wood and they wear it down to nothing. If they cannot digest it, why are they eating it? Do you recommend NOT keeping wood with them for this purpose...

You should always keep wood with Panaque as it is likely a very important part of either their diet or digestive process. In the wild Panaque are ALWAYS found on or very near wood. Systems lacking sufficient sunken wood sources never have a population of Panaque. In the aquarium they consume wood (and expel it) with great relish.
Dr. German's works cast doubt on the theory that Panaque actually digest the wood as a major food source. Though his studies do show that some digestion of wood does take place. There are other studies conducted on living Panaque (German examined the guts of dead specimens) that demonstrate a control group of Panaque growing faster when fed nothing but wood than a control group fed aquarium foods.
So while it remains unclear exactly how and why they are utilizing the wood, there is no doubt that they need it in their diet to remain healthy.
-Shane

[MatsP]

Actually Donovan tested both live and dead fish.

See the section called "Fiber digestion" in this.

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Mats

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I had some correspondence with Donovan German about his "xylophagous Plec" work. I found it very interesting, because intuitively you would suspect that if teeth like that had evolved, some adaptation to the gut would have occurred as well. Dr German wasn't sure why the gut was so un-specialised compared to their teeth, but thought it was probably that the genetic potential existed to allow the teeth to evolve, but that the gut DNA didn't possess the necessary variability.

He started the work from the premise that Panaque spp. would be a good source of novel wood degrading organisms (he was really interested in these rather than the fish), so the findings were a great disappointment to him.

An analogy would be the Giant Panda, which has evolved an enlarged wrist bone based "false thumb" to allow it to grasp the Bamboo it feeds on, but retains the gut of its carnivorous ancestors which stops it effectively digesting it. The Giant Panda survives because it is surrounded by Bamboo and can eat for 23 hours a day, presumably in the same way that a Panaque is surrounded by the wood it feeds on, but cannot digest. Another point of interest was that Donovan observed the Panaques feeding on a wide range of woody debris.

It was a long correspondence with lots of detail, but he did include a summary of his work.

Dr Germans summary:

"So, just to summarize what I think these fish are doing… the wood-eating catfishes dig into decaying wood and efficiently digest wood degradation products that environmental microbes are making available as they degrade wood. The fish also have elevated digestive enzyme activities (e.g., N-acetyl-b-D-glucosaminidase) suggestive that they digest fungi within the wood matrix. Thus, they likely get “energy” from the degraded wood. The stable isotopic signatures (carbon and nitrogen) of wild-caught wood-eating catfishes certainly suggest that they get their protein from fungi and amorphous detritus, and we find periphyton and amorphous detritus in their guts (in addition to the wood; see the “inside the guts” paper where I do a detailed gut content analysis of wild-caught fish). Basically, the fish have to get their nitrogen from somewhere other than the wood detritus (there isn’t much N in wood anyway). The fish certainly ingest wood, they just don’t use the same “pathway” to obtain energy from it as a termite. Rather than harbouring an endosymbiotic community, they let the microbes in the environment do the work for them. This may be a function of living in an aquatic environment."

cheers Darrel

[Jools]

A rather unscientific observation from me, but my young dwarf Panaque (home bred) grow faster on dead collected bogwood (without bark) than on fresh wood with (beech, privet hedge, apple) despite stripping the bark in under a fortnight. I was surprised at this thinking fresher would be better. Roughly equal sawdust laden poo is produced. I guess that micro-organisms in the top 2mm of dead wood are where these fishes are getting the most benefit, but they get less from fresh wood. Or it's harder to get at.

Either way, unless you are supplementing it with something better, dead wood is best. That said, I think quite a lot of dead wood you encounter in an LFS is fairly much "nutrition neutral". Most of my "dead wood" has been lying in a river, pond or lake for some time.

Jools

[MatsP]

Jools,

I agree, my Panaque spp. seem to prefer the wood that is old in the tank, and pieces that I've bought on auction that are "used" are better than the ones that come from the LFS, from what I can tell. And at although unscientific, I think it reflects the proposed theory in Donovan's work... Older wood will have more "stuff living in it", thus better for Panaque...

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Mats

[nvcichlids]

I have had similar findings with one that I found very interesting. I decided to bring a piece of wood home from a local river this summer. it was covered with aquatic moss (like 1/2" thick of moss!) and then I also brought home some typical.. "Older" wood that I knew they would like. My panaque destroyed the moss and that piece of wood prior to touching anything else (well they may have touched other pieces, but I could always find them somewhere on this piece of wood when I did my daily fish count.)

Is is possible that the moss had more "living stuff" under it than even the normal wood.

[taksan]

This is certainly true, New wood is nutritionally useless for Panaques but old wood with various organisms and fungi, moss, algae attached is what they are after. We cannot provide old wood as a constant source which is why I came up with the paste. It gets into the wood and they chew through it. The wood is just the bread ...in the wild they are after the butter. In a tank we have to provide the butter.

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Yes, as the quote shows Donovan was pretty sure that the Panaques were assimilating the nutrients from fungi within the wood. This wouldn't be that surprising as the Basidiomycota (the "white rotting" Bracket fungi etc) have the ability to preferentially degrade lignin.

The fish also have elevated digestive enzyme activities (e.g., N-acetyl-b-D-glucosaminidase) suggestive that they digest fungi within the wood matrix. Thus, they likely get “energy” from the degraded wood. The stable isotopic signatures (carbon and nitrogen) of wild-caught wood-eating catfishes certainly suggest that they get their protein from fungi .....

If I was keeping Panaques I'd keep the structural wood in, but also feed small amounts of rotted wood, you could literally collect any fallen non-coniferous wood, and pile it up in a damp corner of the garden, once it's started to break down and you can see the fungal mycelia transfer it in to the tank. So really just treat it like another "vegetable", and if neccesary take it out before it effects water quality.

A thought occurs that you could culture Oyster mushrooms, Shiitake etc on a Birch log, and feed the spent logs to your fish. <http://www.ragmans.co.uk/produce/mushroom_logs/>

cheers Darrel

[MatsP]

Or even better, befriend a local mushroom growing-place and ask if you can have the old logs? ;)

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Mats

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Or even better, befriend a local mushroom growing-place and ask if you can have the old logs?

Now there is a good idea. My suspicion would be that for commercial production of Pleurotus they don't always use logs, but compressed straw or saw-dust or possibly even some form of woody waste from the paper industry. I'll have a look into this and see what I can find.

If you are collecting your own wood, it should be pretty easy to find appropriate fungally rotted wood, it will be soft due to the loss of structural lignin and white due to the hyphae of the fungi. Unsurprisingly it will also smell of "mushrooms". The only question would then be would the fish recognise it and preferentially feed on it? or are they undiscriminating feeders who just process whatever wood is to hand?

Hard wood sawdust or cereal straw might be a good medium for rapid hyphal production and you may be able to turn this into a fungal Panaque pellet or frozen cube.
Something like this perhaps? <http://www.seedsofitaly.com/product/596>

I haven't got any Panaques but does some-one else want to have a go and see how they get on?

cheers Darrel