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So got these 10 days ago and feels like they have finally settled somewhat, I even see some of them out and about in the tank once in a while, they are quite small(1.5 or 2 inches maybe).

I have 6 of them in a furnished 65 gallon community tank a long with a smallish bristlenose(will move to new cycling tank in a couple of weeks) and a school of lemon tetras. In the future I plan to try breeding for the first time but that might have to take place in a smaller and more easy to monitor tank unless it just happens. And for what I know they could all be female or ,god forbid, 6 males!

For now? I wan't them to grow and be happy. I am a complete beginner so have to figure it out as I go. Anyway my question is simply if I am giving them enough time to eat. My schedule looks like this I have a piece of, say, sweet potato in for roughly 10 hours then I wait 12-20 hours(depending on when I sleep or am away from home) or so before I put something new in. Of course they also chew wood and plants as they like. I don't want to risk spoiling the water by constantly having some vegetable in there and might be that could lead to them overeating anyway?

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

Vegetables should be removed just before they go soft and gooey. Sweet potato takes a few days to reach this state, cucumber for example less than two days often. They won't overeat vegetables - all that can go wrong is the vegetables clog the filters and/or go off.

Some mid protein tablets also a good idea too, esp. if fed at night. I use tetra tabimin but loads of other options.

Hope that helps,

Jools

Ill make sure to have the veggies in there for a bit longer then! I feed the tetras shrimp/wafers occasionally(I suspect some of it is there fir the plecos to take later) and green beans for the plecos at times do you believe I still need to up their protein intake?

Thanks!

I slice raw sweet potato with a peeler, creating very thin slices that if not completely finished by the fish, will disintegrate rather than create a foul mess. I feed that as much as 2x per week. I feed my L397 once a week with live blackworms in a bowl (so the worms don't enter the gravel) and I feed my L397 cooked chopped shrimp once a week or so. Occasionally I give them commercial algae wafers. And of course, they can chew on the wood in their tank daily.

Good luck with your fish,
Eric

Thanks again, hopefully they turn out to be legit L397(or atleast some other verifiable species) still didn't have opportunity to take good pictures but ill probably harass you with them sooner rather than later! Not that I really have any reason to doubt the seller but who knows about the one he got them from etc.

Id rather not give livefood since I had bad luck with parasites(nematodes) and try to risk minimize, reckon I could just give them a bit more shrimp instead? Good tip slicing it and just let it dissolve. They chew so much wood it's surreal to me haha, atleast that's what I can gather from their leftovers! -_-

Mine love the shrimp. I don't think it matters what kind, but I buy human-grade "white leg" shrimp, which is the most commonly available at my local grocery store.

Also a note about the sweet potato - if your sweet potato is fresh, it will be wet an juicy when you cut it up with a peeler. It will sink on its own. But if your sweet potato is old or dried out, the slices will float. To use them either weigh them down, or compress them very forcefully while they are submerged in the tank water. This will make them more dense and they will usually sink after that.

Cheers, Eric

bekateen wrote: ↑21 Apr 2021, 17:47 Mine love the shrimp. I don't think it matters what kind, but I buy human-grade "white leg" shrimp, which is the most commonly available at my local grocery store.

Also a note about the sweet potato - if your sweet potato is fresh, it will be wet an juicy when you cut it up with a peeler. It will sink on its own. But if your sweet potato is old or dried out, the slices will float. To use them either weigh them down, or compress them very forcefully while they are submerged in the tank water. This will make them more dense and they will usually sink after that.

Cheers, Eric

Ok ill go with shrimps then and skip the live worms, don't really trust my LFS after what I experienced.

I use a stick that's from some of the wood in the aquarium(labeld as wine wood guess it's just that), and shove it through the potato- have a fishing line attached to the stick so I can just pull it up without having to have hands in the water(sometimes it doesn't work hehe).

bekateen wrote: ↑21 Apr 2021, 17:47 Mine love the shrimp. I don't think it matters what kind, but I buy human-grade "white leg" shrimp, which is the most commonly available at my local grocery store.

Also a note about the sweet potato - if your sweet potato is fresh, it will be wet an juicy when you cut it up with a peeler. It will sink on its own. But if your sweet potato is old or dried out, the slices will float. To use them either weigh them down, or compress them very forcefully while they are submerged in the tank water. This will make them more dense and they will usually sink after that.

Cheers, Eric

Just wanted to ask you a further question that's not really regarding the food but feel like a new thread is unnecessary. Do you think it's adviceable that I go and buy the rest of the plecos from the same spawn if I wan't to breed them in the future? It's quite likely I get atleast 1m and 1f out of 6 but I mean it's not foolproof and I don't know the standards- is it better to mix fish from different sources as to prevent inbreeding along the line or is it better to try and keep it as "pure" as possible so I don't risk ending up with hybrids? I somewhat regret not just bringing all at once but I think the rest are still up for grabs.

There is no right answer here. Many people buy 6-8 fish from the same source to get fish of same species. Other people like to buy fish from different sources (especially if fish are captive bred) to get genetic diversity.

Cheers, Eric

Affording your plecos the opportunity to get to the food before other community fish get to it , or before it gets down into the gravel is key. I keep my smaller plecos in bare bottom tanks without any other community fish. You will be able to see exactly how they are eating and be able to clean up their mess on a regular basis.

daveupl8 wrote: ↑05 May 2021, 05:34 Affording your plecos the opportunity to get to the food before other community fish get to it , or before it gets down into the gravel is key. I keep my smaller plecos in bare bottom tanks without any other community fish. You will be able to see exactly how they are eating and be able to clean up their mess on a regular basis.

Well I have 6 of them in a 65 gallon along with 10 lemon tetras and a leftover ancistrus, they get to eat plenty, I just leave either sweet potato or zucchini in there most of the time and then feed canned green beans every other day or so. The amount of poop they produce is deffo indicating that they eat more than enough(albeit a lot of it is probably wood) but I can also see a couple of them eating potato for a majority of the time, hopefully they take shifts eating!

I don't know if it's the optimal feeding regimen but seems to work well so far, but only had them for a month or so- hard to tell if they are growing like they should(and frankly since I have no experience it would be hard to tell anyway). Kinda wish I wen't with bare bottom since the mess is truly astounding for such a relative small number of small fish but alas it's too late. I am trying to remove most of the waste every 3rd day or so but the arrangement of the wood etc makes it a hustle, considering rescaping it for easier maintenance but waiting for a piece or two too sink before I do that.

Ok I am back with more food related questions as the true newbie I am! Now it's not "how often" but rather "how much". Say I drop green beans in there, how much is a normal amount? I usually take like 1 bit each now but it seems they are done with that in a couple of hours so could probably give more?

I am bit concerned that a couple of the smaller plecos are not getting very much since I have noticed bully tendencies from 2 of the larger ones.I have tried tricking them by first having them eat and when they are occupied dropping food elsewhere but that seems to work so so.

How are your plecos doing? I have a group of L397 also!