L46 and a Hardy Clean-up Crew?

[mistern2005]

For being so lucky to have my zebra plecos spawn, it is quite humbling when I find myself in a fairly simple situation and have no clue as to the answer. I hope I can get some good advice from fellow pleco keepers....

I have my adult zebras in a 34 gallon tank. Ammonia=0, Nitrite =0, Nitrate=<30ppm. I use RO water reconstituted with RO right and Ph stable, run a UV sterilizer, and filter with Purigen and Chemi-pure. However I STILL end up with algae, film, detritus, etc. covering the hardscaping in the tank. Before my big move I kept red cherry shrimp in the tank and they kept the place tidy. Since the move, for some unknown reason, I have been unable to keep cherry shrimp alive in the tank. I tried Amano shrimp (cardina japonica) and they are dying off quickly as well.

The question becomes what kind of clean up crew should I try keeping with the zebra plecos? I've tried apple and spixi snails in the past and they have died off over time. I even tried "infecting" the tank with Malaysian Trumpet Snails, but they never really took off or cleaned the hardscape. Should I give them another whirl? When I moved I set up the tank for about 6 months with some bristlenose plecos and they kept the place spotless. I'm almost to the point of adding a few more to permenantly live with the zebras because the place is quite dirty. My primary concern is upsetting the balance of the tank such that the zebras quit spawning!

Does anyone have any ideas for a suitable clean-up crew that will get the job done AND peacefully coexist with the zebras? I'd very much appreciate fresh ideas on the subject.

[Line]

Hi

What's the turnover of the tank per hour?

Increasing the turnover clean up the hardscaping a lot.
Secondly.. removing most of the wood helps a lot. They don't really need it anyway.

I run several zebra tanks, and came to following suitable (besides tetras) companionship: Corydoras sterbais and parotocinclus sp. "recife".

In my tanks the Malaysian Trumpet Snails thrives very well. I use sand bottom. Very thin.

Best regards
Line

[mistern2005]

Turnover is approximately 20 times per hour.

Furthermore the tank isn't overfeed nor the lighting too strong or on for that long, so it is puzzling to me why, previously, in Arizona I had very little problems with algae/film/detritus, and now, in Tyler, I have had nothing but problems. The only thing that has really changed in my setup is the UV sterilizer and the "advanced" chemical filtration media. It's very odd.

If I had a few tankmates that cleaned (and bred like my cherry shrimp used to do) I believe this wouldn't be an issue. I do appreciate the suggestions, please keep them coming.

[apistomaster]

Our aquariums are not as stable as we may think.
I have cycles when certain plants, shrimp and fish that work well for years then something changes and a different plant comes to dominate, shrimp populations that filled nearly every tank slowly (sometime not so slowly) crash and become difficult to return to a previously productive state. One group of fish species stops breeding readily but other begin breeding well. Even with many decades of experience I can not explain why some of these changes occur in my tanks. Let alone the differences one find between living in one place then moving to another.

Last time I had H. zebra I was growing out 10 wild specimens in a 29 high.
They shared the tank with a trio of adult Sturisoma aureum adults I had raised from some wild parents. The Sturisoma aureum like a diet rich it animal protein but are also very good algae eaters. What I liked about this combination which I used with some other breeding tanks like my L260 and L333 was that even just one was enough to keep a 29 to 40 gal breeder algae free and Sturisoma do not invade breeding caves as do common bushy noses. Keeping a Bushy Nose as an algae eater can cause less breeding success of the primary pleco species you are trying to breed. They will force their way into caves intended for more valuable fish. Otocinclus or Parotocinclus spp. like Parotocinclus "Recife" or P. spilosoma are good choices as algae eaters and they will not take over breeding caves. I had a good top covering growth of Ceratophyllum demersum, Tropical Hornwort and a large and thriving colony of Cherry Shrimp. These aquariums stayed very clean and I made water changes of about 70% every 4 or 5 days and maybe hydrovacuum the detritus from thin layers of sandy or FloraBase substrates no more than 1/4" thick about once a month. Sometimes Najas would replace the Hornwort. It seems to be more like an ecological succession than a poor choice of plants. One factor which can effect which plants thrive is the age of the fluorescent lamps. I use NO T-5 mainly and they tend to have a flatter line of light output then suddenly quit working when they are used up. NO T-8 and T-12 will continue to light for years but only sustain a desirable full out put for less than one year but may continue to turn on for 3 or more years. Diatoms may replace algae in insufficiently lighted tanks. This can change which higher plants are able to thrive at different ages/stages of their use.
I really like to have at least Cherry Shrimp thriving in a basic pleco breeding tank with Ceratophyllum growth doing well. I have MTS snails and some pond snails in most tank. When one uses such thin substrate layers then over time the empty MTS snails can become a major part of the substrate.

I have a little success breeding L260 in various set ups. In fact during a large water change today I discovered I had 10 or 12, 3/4" L260 juveniles which must have hatched sometime last Fall when I had a couple infertile egg masses ejected but this was the first I knew of any fry having been produced and apparently thriving in their 29 high along with about 15 adults. I have a lot of wood piled up in their breeding tank but this tank is one of the few in which there is no substrate. in past set ups I always had a thin layer.

I think later this year after it has warmed up, I may buy quite a few Otocinclus to use as my pleco breeding tanks' primary algae eaters but I will also probably buy a number of Farlowella to use in other pleco breed tanks as my primary algae eaters.
I would like to get many thriving cherry shrimp colonies going again. I tried to replace they with the yellow variety but those have not been very productive; much like the latter days of my Cherry Shrimp.
I like having shrimp colonies and even a black worm colony thriving in the thin substrates to help create more complex ecosystems. When more complex ecosystem become established it seems to benefit all.
I don't think your use of Purigen is a problem. I used to use it constantly for 5 years in a modified PhosBan reactor placed in the sump of my wet/dry filter when I was keeping Heckel Discus. I also experimented with using some in media bags placed in Aquaclear HOB filters and I think at times it may have helped trigger breeding of some fish. Mainly my Corydoras hastatus colony but those only reached their maximum productivity as long as I fed them bbs daily and used very soft water.

This post has been a rambling stream of consciousness and not intended to provide all the answers but perhaps provide some different perspectives on what set ups seem to work well only to stop working well. Maybe something I wrote will help you consider why and how formally stable set ups may change over time. I am still trying to understand why and how aquarium breeding set ups seem to change over time to conditions I did not desire or intend myself.
I use sponge filters, 2 per tank. One is operated using the traditional airlift and the other sponge filter is powered by a MaxiJet 600, 160 gph rated flow. Usually I include one air stone in addition to the sponge filters.

[Taratron]

I'd like to add that I think the yellow strain of the cherries is just weaker than the cherries themselves; I've tried stock from a few different breeders and the yellow fades out within a few generations. They are never as prolific as my cherries. I'd be glad to send you some cherries, apisto. ;)

Has anyone had issue with assassin snails and zebras?

[Line]

Turnover of appx 20 per hour isn't nessesary. Perhaps its even of disadvantage.
Food is smashed around. And covering all hardscape.
With less turnover the zebras have a better chance to eat and clean up.

I bred a lot of them - it really isn't nessesary. Oxygene is important - not the turnover.
I run maximum a turnover of 7.

As to your UV sterilizer... I have slightly bad experiences with UV and zebras. Only with zebras. I know, its funny - but I'm very sure. I had my UV on and off, zebras in tanks with or without UV.

I have no explanation, but assume something like all the dead stuff drop down on all hardscaping. Covering everything like atomic waste. Invisible to our eyes. Water is sensationally, but where goes the dead stuff? Right .. down on the bottom.

It would perhaps be better to place the UV between two filtrations? Now I don't use it at all anymore.


Best regards
Line

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I agree with Apistomasters

.....like having shrimp colonies and even a black worm colony thriving in the thin substrates to help create more complex ecosystems. When more complex ecosystem become established it seems to benefit all...

I like substrate and plants in all my tanks, even if they aren't biotope correct, for their beneficial effects on water quality and plants should certainly help to reduce your nitrate levels.

The shrimp issue sounds like it may be related to high levels of at least one heavy metal in your water supply or possibly to traces of insecticide. If you use 100% RO these must come from a non-water source. What are the fittings made of? (between the RO filter and the tank).

I've never used Purigen or Chemi-pure, the thought instantly occurs if you all ready have RO why are you using them at all? Same applies to the "pH stable" as well as "RO right". I'm not familiar with the actual product but I assume it is a phosphate buffer? The "RO right" will raise the KH, which should keep the pH stable.

If Purigen and Chemi-pure means that you are not doing many water changes? I'd definitely up the water changes, I aim for about 10% a day.

cheers Darrel

[RickE]

Just another thought here. Both snails and shrimps need calcium. RO water won't have any significant amount left in it. I'm not familiar with the particular salts you are adding back to the RO water, but do they contain calcium?

[mistern2005]

apistomaster - thank you for the wonderful response, you have given me a lot to consider and research! I appreciate you taking the time to share your insights with me in such a detailed fashion. My hope is that I am able to determine a suitable tankmate, and then find the suitable tankmate for sale from a reputable fellow hobbyist.

Taraton - I have kept assassins with plecos of all varieties without any issue whatsoever...at least that has been my experience. Currently I don't have any assassin snails in the mix, or any snails for that matter unfortunately.

Line - I am apt to say that I somewhat disagree with you about the turnover rate. That isn't to say that you are incorrect, rather there is likely more than one way to do things. My preference has been to maintain a high turnover rate, and the turnover rate in the tank in question has been constant over time which implicates it to be a non-issue (to me anyway). I've turned down my filtration during feedings and saw no significant variation. The primary means of uneaten food, IME, has been via my stupidity through overfeeding. You raise a VERY interesting point, however, about the UV sterilizer. This is something I have not considered....maybe you are on to something? I think this is a worthy suggestion and warrants experimentation! You have me giving serious consideration to turning off the UV sterilizer in my tank for a month and see if conditions improve.

Still I strongly feel that my main issue at this point is that I am devoid of a "complete" ecosystem. Historically, like apistomaster, I've had blackworms or MTS in the substrate, shrimp swimming around, plants, ditherfish (which I still have), and the zebra plecos. Currently, I am missing the chunk of my ecosystem responsible for cleaning detritus/film/algae - which contributed to the loss of plant life. I know some folks keep plecos, and breed them in fact, in plain empty glass tanks, with few/no decorations and no other tank inhabitants. Personally I have had a hard time keeping fish this way and I'm anxious to get back to the way things were when my ecosystem was "complete". Maybe it will take a while for me to come full circle, or maybe I will quit and try a different husbandry method...

Excellent conversation, and I greatly appreciate everyone's feedback!

[mistern2005]

dw - Another valid point about contamination. The main problem with the theory is that I use the same water on another tank with a growing cherry shrimp population! Maybe it is a fitting or new material the tank itself...I'll look at this more closely as well, but I'm unable to think of anything different. It's almost like my zebra pleco tank has "old tank syndrome" but there isn't the high nitrates one would typically associate with such a problem. My idea about using the "high-tech" chemical filtration media came from when I was using half treated tap water / half RO. My concern was that I had copper or other heavy metals in the water and wanted to do my best to eliminate them. When I used these products I ended up enjoying how polished my water looked and how much they lowered my nitrates. I now use 100% reconstituted RO water, so there is no question about what's in the water. My plants slowly died off over time as the detritus and film has increased....maybe it's because I stripped out all the nitrates? I've ALWAYS done and ALWAYS will do frequent water changes.

RickE - The products I use, Kent RO Right, has trace minerals, such as calcium in it. It is just a fancy GH buffer. The Kent PH Stable is what buffers the KH in the water - my KH always seems to be low, like 1-2dKH. Here are links to the products:
Kent RO Right
http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/p ... catid=4128
Kent PH Stable
http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com ... KMPS2GABNP

Again, I greatly appreciate everyone's insights.

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Very strange, it doesn't actually tell you what is in the "pH stable", although "strongly basic carbonic acid salts" is fairly nonsensical and doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, it may be an extremely strange way of saying it contains sodium bi-carbonate. The plant growth issue may be that there is a lack of a micro-element, Fe or Mg? (or very low levels of N,P or K). You could get a "complete plant growth mix", I'm not sure what you can get in the USA, but this sort of thing: <http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/>. You can use this at very low levels.

cheers Darrel

[TwoTankAmin]

I do things quite the opposite of most in this thread I think. I have well water which comes from the tap at about GH 6, kh 5 and pH 7.4. I was recently told my TDS were around 90 ppm, (I have never owned a TDS meter0. I have no issues with algae or fim.

I currently run 3 zebra tanks- 30 gal breeder with 11 adult wc and a few fry (up since Apr 06), 20L with about 20-25 F1 growing out (up since 07) and 33L with 15 of my F1 just about adults and 2 wc male adults (up since early 09). I have no issues with algae or film. These 3 tanks share a number of qualities:

-Only zebras are in them.
-0 added light except for during maint.
-Bare bottom.
-Few to no plants (started out w/ plants which were removed over time).
-Rock and wood decor plus assorted material caves or fry habitats.
-Moderate turnover from HOB and power heads or sponge filter.
-Temps maintained between 83F and 86F (28.3C-30C).
-weekly 40-50% water changes along with vacuuming of detritus and media rinsing/replacing.

I used to have algae issues when I did have plants in these tanks and had to use lights and dose nutrients for the plants. I mostly have 0 now and when I do it the easily removed kind on the front glass. I would note that on avaerage I will take the tanks apart to get head counts or move fry at which time I scrub the bottom glass, However, I do not remove a meaningful amount of film.

My personal feeling is that a lot of what really constitutes the final details of water "quality" is made up of a number of low levels of minerals and trace elements that we simply do not measure and really never know are there. Combine that with the variability of more macro type stuff and then what contributes to TDS and you can easily see how any two tanks, even in the same fish room, can have totally different water chemistry on a variety of levels. Over time whether we have well water or municipal water, there is no guarantee the exact parameters of all things will be constant, in fact I would be surprised if the were. When one brings ro and reconstituting mixes into the equation, who knows what "good" stuff may have unknowingly been eliminated from the system? Especially if one uses only reconstitutes ro and does not mix it with one's tap. Speaking of which, are you 100% certain your carbon, micron and membranes are all in good condition and not in need of replacing?

Since detritus is basically made up of plant waste, wood waste, food waste and fish poop the only way to prevent it is 0 plants and 0 wood, then take your fish out to eat and train them
only poop by the filter intakes.

[apistomaster]

I don't use RO water all that much. I use it mostly for certain fish breeding projects and once I have acquired the fry and they are well on their way they are acclimated back to tap water. I have always used a little tap water to provide RO water with trace minerals. My KH and GH both run about 6* so when they are diluted down by 80 to 90% of what was present in the source tap water the relative balance or ratios remain the same. Their absolute quantities as expressed in ppm is greatly reduced.

Shrimp are naturally prone to under go population crashes when their numbers exceed a certain point then a change of conditions like summer causing temperatures to rise and dissolved O2 levels drop below that which is necessary to sustain an overly large population. Cherry Shrimp are pretty hardy animals and are not very sensitive to very low to no presence of ionized metals in old plumbing which is regularly being flushed. But all that aside, when a big population of shrimp crashes the dying animals tend to inhibit reproduction among the remaining animals even if you prevent pollution problems. There is nothing special about shrimp population crashes. You see the same curves over and over in ecology. Doesn't matter if you are studying shrimp, fish, deer, algae or rotifers.

Personally, the amount of effort I put into aquarium maintenance varies widely and is related directly to my mood swings. Sometimes I am not particularly interested in my fish. Other times I am. I try to make the most of the times when I care most to coincide with when it will yield the most results for a given amount of effort. I find it is impossible to sustain a high degree of interest and attention to fish keeping unrelentingly. I sometimes care a lot more about fly fishing or something else. I wish I could automate a lot of routine functions like water changes but I am simply not set up in such a way that automation is possible to put into effect.

I think Zebra plecos are one of the most delicate species of plecos. L260 are very similar. Clean water and avoiding extreme changes in water chemistry seems more important than the exact one keeps constant. Many others are quite hardy and much more resilient to changes.
I think 7 to 10 times a tank's volume is better than say, 20 X per hour. That does seem rather excessive. If for no other reasons than has been mentioned, that food gets blasted around and the plecos have no way to catch it. If I happen to use a high turnover volume, and I do in my Discus tanks, 10 to 13 times a tank's volume per hour, I have split return flows which in turn are split to exit at the surface and parallel to the substrate. I direct the flows off tank sides and at an opposing flow. This results in canceling and creation of non-directional turbulence. Fish like Discus do not like to have to be swimming hard to maintain their position but when flows are mostly canceled by an equal and opposing flow then they find it easy to hold their position with little effort.
With plecos I do deliberately set up a directional flow to simulate stream flow.
I also make sure there are pieces of wood and rock which they can hide behind if they wish to find a quiet spot.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

0 added light except for during maint.

That would account for no algae, no light = no photosynthesis and no plants of any description (including algae).

Bare bottom.

Again there is nothing wrong with a bare bottom, but you need to keep it very clean, both plants and substrate offer you some buffer against deteriorating water quality. As long as you can keep your water quality high with water changes you are OK. A lot of successful plec. breeders use this approach, but I'm not confident personally that I can maintain water quality using it.

Since detritus is basically made up of plant waste, wood waste, food waste and fish poop the only way to prevent it is 0 plants and 0 wood,

This is a fallacy, the visible mulm and detritus you can see are actually having very little deleterious effect on water quality. The same with the fish faeces. It is the ammonia that is diffusing from the fish gills that we need to worry about, we can't see it, or accurately measure it, but it is always there. If you don't have any plants (which preferentially take up ammonia) or substrate (where nitrification bacteria will reside)you are entirely reliant on the biological filtration capacity of the filter to convert ammonia > nitrite > nitrate.
This is an oxygen intensive process. The end result of successful filtration is that levels of nitrate will build up, and can only be diluted by water changes.

With apologies for the cross-post, but all the details are here:
<http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829>.

cheers Darrel