L191 Feeding

[Redtailrob]

Hello all.

Considering obtaining one of these beautiful specimens but as part of my research wanted some more feeding advice from you L - Number Pro's on here.
Regards
Rob

[ElTofi]

without considering me as a "pro", I maintain 6 of these beauties from October 2010, and they grow quite fast (for Panaque, of course)...

I feed them with a large amount of everything... but their main diet is :

1. Soft wood, collected in my area in the alpine rivers (Alnus glutinosa, Fagus sylvatica, Betula pendula, etc...)
2. Hikari Chips
3. NovoPleco XL (JBL)
4. all what the other fishes leave on the bottom (vegies, shrimps, fishflesh, dry food, etc...)

they were in a 720 liters from October 2010 (7-8 cm) till late September 2011 (11-14 cm). After a short time in the 10.000 liters, they come to 12-17 cm today...

What I noticed is that the smallest went on growing slowlier and the bigger quicker... it makes sense, no ?

[ElTofi]

One of them, in mid-October 2011, right before diving into the 10.000 liters



At this time, this one was 14 cm TL

[plecomanpat]

beautiful royal...one of my personal favs...have 8 different varieties myself...luv 'em

[ElTofi]

update :

the 6 L191 received yesterday in the evening a whole green zucchini. This morning, it was cleared ! I didn't find a single rest, even not the skin of it. I guess the loaches helped them to finish it...

they always have fun on Hikari chips algae wafers, clean every new piece of wood I put into the tank (they love dry alder bark, directly on branches)... but I noticed, once more, that a varied died is very welcome.

[Redtailrob]

Stunning Fish.
Big thanks for the info.
Will do a little more research too before i come to a decesion?
Are they sexable/ breedable?
I assume that growing so big this is unobtainable in all but the biggest aquaria?

[ElTofi]

considering breeding and sexing...

of course, that's the final aim BUT ! First of all, I guess 17-18 cm is still immature... for fishes which will grow over 40 cm. With the Panaque cf armbrusteri "Xingu" (LDA63) I had from 2005 till mid 2010, I saw the first pectoral and interopercular odontodes growing when the fishes were 25-30 cm, at the age of 6 years old...

And they died a few months later after this picture, because of a bacterial infection (or virus, I still don't know)

What I learned from this experience is that a big tank is an absolute must for big fishes... and that the maximum of various foods is absolutely necessary to grow them at a "natural and normal" speed... Nothing new, in fact...

[Martin Holm]

Hello!
This is my first post on the mighty PC. I am a Swedish aquanerd with a renewed spark for catfish.

I have two L191 and I mostly feed them veggies and bog-wood, that's it. Cucumber, Courgette, carrots, green peas. If you have a external filter you should be prepare to clean it very often because of the fibres from the bog-wood cork up the filter. One more thing is not to let your L191 eat high protein food like discus granulate, bloodworm and red meat. It will kill them slowly because of their intestines which are specialized in high fibre diet. People used to have them together with discus which is a certain way to kill them slowly.

This post is probably filled to the limit with wrong spelling and incorrect sentences