Well they'll be living 20+ years so... any time before that really.
Wood is a part of the diet because they need it for several things, some more important than others:
1) keeps teeth in order
2) Panaques need a lot of roughage in their diet to keep their digestive tracts in working order, and this is a vital source for them.
3) The nutritional value of it is low, so they need to eat a lot of it all the time, but it is the hemicellulose that they have evolved to digest.
Panaques are known wood eaters, and it is part of their staple diet in the wild. Younger specimens are found at the banks eating driftwood snags, whereas the larger closer to adult fish stay in deeper river parts feeding on and around sunken logs. They have evolved specifically to be able to extract nutrients from wood, and so driftwood is more or less vital to Panaques. They are specialised in every way to eat driftwood. It's not just Panaques that go through driftwood either, lots of other fish in different genus do, even Hypancistrus. Even though they do not NEED it like Panaque/Hypostomus cochliodon and maybe a couple of others, they benefit IME. I'll still always have bogwood in all my pleco tanks.
Basically you are saying because it is inconvinient to you because you'll have to do more tank maintanence you simply will not provide what is needed. IMO you shouldn't keep the fish...
I leave you with
"In the beginning of the world, the "demiurgo" (early gods) cut a tree and split away a piece of the bark and let it fall into the water. The piece transformed into a caribe (piranha). They cut off other pieces of bark that they also let fall into the water and from those pieces they named the fishes that were born: cachama (tambaqui), palometa (silver dollar), etc. With a long and wide piece of the tree, they created the panaque."
Yanomami
Venezuela people’s creation myth
Wood is a part of the diet because they need it for several things, some more important than others:
1) keeps teeth in order
2) Panaques need a lot of roughage in their diet to keep their digestive tracts in working order, and this is a vital source for them.
3) The nutritional value of it is low, so they need to eat a lot of it all the time, but it is the hemicellulose that they have evolved to digest.
Panaques are known wood eaters, and it is part of their staple diet in the wild. Younger specimens are found at the banks eating driftwood snags, whereas the larger closer to adult fish stay in deeper river parts feeding on and around sunken logs. They have evolved specifically to be able to extract nutrients from wood, and so driftwood is more or less vital to Panaques. They are specialised in every way to eat driftwood. It's not just Panaques that go through driftwood either, lots of other fish in different genus do, even Hypancistrus. Even though they do not NEED it like Panaque/Hypostomus cochliodon and maybe a couple of others, they benefit IME. I'll still always have bogwood in all my pleco tanks.
Basically you are saying because it is inconvinient to you because you'll have to do more tank maintanence you simply will not provide what is needed. IMO you shouldn't keep the fish...
I leave you with
"In the beginning of the world, the "demiurgo" (early gods) cut a tree and split away a piece of the bark and let it fall into the water. The piece transformed into a caribe (piranha). They cut off other pieces of bark that they also let fall into the water and from those pieces they named the fishes that were born: cachama (tambaqui), palometa (silver dollar), etc. With a long and wide piece of the tree, they created the panaque."
Yanomami
Venezuela people’s creation myth
