Anyone ever weigh their plecos?

[Recumbent]

A friend asked my how much some of my big plecos weigh. I was surprised that I had no idea. I often weigh sports fish I catch and release and also often measure pleco's length, but I've never weighed any! I'm an ultra light backpacker so I have several scales and weigh everything that goes in my pack (over and over again) but never thought of weighing my fish. My 18 L46 weigh next to nothing but a 16" L25 or 18" L330 must weigh a couple of pounds. Telling someone you keep 80 lbs of plecos gives someone a lot more information than a count of 150 plecos. It could also help with not wasting extra bio material in a given tank. My 7 L273 at 8 to 10" have at least 50# of ceramic beads in a 125G sump for a 300G tank left over from when it held a lot more fish (I could slowly take 3/4 out without impact).

How many pounds of plecos do you have?

 

[KrazEDesigns]

I've never tried to catch & weigh my BN pleco, but I have weighed my 8½ yr old fantail goldfish (If they needed meds that were fed like metromeds, it's based on weight, so that information is handy for me). She came in at 365 grams, so that helps me to know what 1% of her weight is when it comes to daily feeds of non-medicated food as well.
I just have to catch the other two piggies to get their weight eventually

 

[Charney]

i have thought about ordering a jewelers scale to weigh the fish in case I need to treat with antibiotics. Honestly I really should just order one.

 

[bulldovii]

A friend asked my how much some of my big plecos weigh. I was surprised that I had no idea. I often weigh sports fish I catch and release and also often measure pleco's length, but I've never weighed any! I'm an ultra light backpacker so I have several scales and weigh everything that goes in my pack (over and over again) but never thought of weighing my fish. My 18 L46 weigh next to nothing but a 16" L25 or 18" L330 must weigh a couple of pounds. Telling someone you keep 80 lbs of plecos gives someone a lot more information than a count of 150 plecos. It could also help with not wasting extra bio material in a given tank. My 7 L273 at 8 to 10" have at least 50# of ceramic beads in a 125G sump for a 300G tank left over from when it held a lot more fish (I could slowly take 3/4 out without impact).

How many pounds of plecos do you have?

150 lbs of plecos. That alot of suckers

Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[KrazEDesigns]

Just go to walmart or target & get a digital kitchen scale that allows you to 'set to zero' (you can place a container of tank water on it to weigh your fish, hit set to zero, and when you put the fish in the dish, it will only display the weight of the fish), but you also need one that can give you the weight in grams.

I bought the one shown below which has way more features than I ever use, but only because it was on clearance at the time

 

[Charney]

the jeweler/gram scales are a little more sensitive. So if your dosing something it can make a difference.

 

[KrazEDesigns]

You're not likely to have a fish so tiny that you need a jeweller scale; they are great if you're measuring jewels especially to get the carats.. or of course if you're into drugs....

Any fish keeper that I have ever heard of who weigh their fish in the 14 years that I have been in the hobby use a digital kitchen scale as they are pretty darn accurate. Mine will measure 0.01 of a gram so I really don't see how it could make much of a difference.