bought some baby panaque nigro's,

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theunytedone

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 9, 2010
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HONORURU, HAWAII!
Hey everyone!

As my thread title says, i just snagged some baby royal plecs. 3 total, got em for like 14 bucks each, really nice patterning. hopefully i can get some of my blackberry pictures up for yall...

anyway, 2 are SOMEWHAT stressed-looking still. eyes a bit sunken in but pretty lively... already had to bump one off of my AC200 intake pipe. poor guy. All 3 are in a 30L tank, so space shouldnt be an issue, ive also got a penguin 250 or whatever and also an AC200 going. tank's about half full to get the waterfall effect and bubbles. :)

also got some driftwood in there for them. one has been munching on it already. the other 2 stay near the heater.

since there are 2 sickly looking ones, are there any extra steps anyone would recommend for the younglings? ive got a heater on at 83deg F, and already put some rock salt in. Tank's been cycling on colonized filter media for about a week or so. Food is Hikari algae tabs as well as sinking cichlid bio-gold (blue bag)...theyre a little resistant to it but i have a feeling they'll come around.

i plan to get a few more today after work!

thanks for reading everyone. Im open to suggestions and constructive criticism. be nice please.

nigel in hawaii.
 
Nice! I've always wanted 1 but they get to large for my tank... and I'd just recommend watching them... Making sure they are fed... make sure they aren't just sitting around... Good Luck!
 
55 gallon... and yeah thats what I've heard... Slow Growers... but can grow huge... I've read that fish can get up to 16"... But once it hits 12" it would be to large for my tank... My beliefs are a fish should be able to turn around while it's in the tank (I know... I'm weird like that)<----Sarcasm

So I don't want to have to worry about it when it grows that size... and I have a tanganyika tank... so not good have high pH with a blackwater type fish
 
ahhh true true. Good thinking, and i admire resisting the urge to buy fish when you dont have adequate room to raise them. thankfully ive got some 18in wide tanks for when they outgrow their 30g.

16in aint huge :P

...and and update, i bought 3 more (i bought 2 and the gf bought 1 for me :) )...they were nice and lively, actually starting to fight a little since theyve got more room than in the LFS.

i lost one, actually. the one with the sunken eyes. he just started getting beat up by like 3 other ones then went pale and limp. poor poor guy...so i buried him outside by a plant. The rest are starting to munch on the wood, and even starting to try and get the bio-gold pellets but the gravel i have for them actually is too big for them to move around to get to the pellets lol.

theyre living right next door to my dying jardini tank, and i must say its comforting to have a new generation of fish...i guess like when people's' dog die and blah blah they get a new one....whew!
 
Ahahah for all the fish I've had 16 inches is pretty huge... My largest fish was a 8 inch Jack Dempsey... He used to be in a 40 gallon... He was one of the best looking fish in that tank... then one night it sprung a leak (The Night before we went on vacation) and after we came back I took him to the pet store so he could find a new home... Oh wait scratch that... I've had a 12 inch rope fish... but I don't really consider him huge either
 
nice! well turns out i have lost 2 out of 6 now. the 4 that are left are the ones that had no sunken eyes in the LFS. Lesson learned, look for health and not just patterning.

poor things. The one that passed yesterday, i walked in my room to find it being eaten by my AC200 intake pipe and one of his tankmates. gahhhh!!!! so he got buried too.

what do you think about having a section of the tank being bare-bottom for them to find food? idk how they would react to a single bare spot on the ground in the middle of their gravel....
 
well here's an update..

i went from 6 to 3 basically.
2 were borderline healthy bringing them home from LFS (oh well)
1 got stuck in the penguin 250's intake pipe. no strainer. :(((((
...it lived for a couple more days with 1/2 of its body as an open wound...finally it passed.

so i have 3 left.
...my question is, how territorial are they at this size?
once they got more living space, it seemed that they turned on eachother a lot more than in the LFS.

i wanna just have a bunch of em being grown out but i feel 3 will be good for now.
 
The royals at liliha that sold for 13.95 were of a really good size and price. I took a look at them when they first came in and if you got an early pick you should have gotten some pretty healthy ones. Although most of then had some fin/tail damage going on. What's your water change schedule like? Also When you say "tanks been cycling on filtered media" did you take media from a seeded tank, you added some kind of store bought bb solution or you've just had the filters running on no fish tank? Lastly the suction from the ac200 shouldn't be a problem. I got 2 royals from liliha at a much smaller size earlier this year, About 1.25-1.5". They both did fine in a tank with a eheim 2260, xp3, and ac110

sorry for the long reply I just wanna cover a lot of the bases so we can help you out
 
yeah the last shipment they brought in had about 50 fish i believe. when i got to the store there were only 12 left. i ended up buying 3 and then an additional 3 the next day or so. i wish i went earlier...but the remaining 3 i have seem to be happy. the two bigger ones are always scuffling eachother fighting over the heater :P and the smaller one gets the better hiding spots.

i wish i could have a bunch more...but theyre more happy i believe with the space...and by the cycled filter media it meant that there was other fish in that tank with that filter before i put the plecos in there. so beneficial bacteria had been established already, something i deem essential for new fish.

i dont think the suction was a problem, but the babies liked to "free swim" and "land'" on the walls of the tank, and since they like current...one twiddling by the intake pipe could most certainly get caught by it.

...also, for their diet...when would be a good time to try and introduce vegetables? the plecs rasp on their driftwood quite happily, but the sinking cichlid bio gold or whatever that i give to them eventually turns to mush and dissipates into the substrate. would you dig a little "feeding circle", exposing the glass on the floor of the tank and then put the food there? or just continue the way ive been doing things? plecs are such messy eaters.
 
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