royal pleco

[Big Business]

I haven't had much luck with royals. my last one lasted a few weeks then just died. I think it was malnutrition. I was trying to feed it some pleco disks but the damn catfish got to them first. Any tricks of the trade to get the pleco to get to them first?

I don’t think it could have been the water parameters. Are they sensitive to anything? The pH is ~6.7 it’s soft water, about 76-78F and I do weekly water changes

 

[Oddball]

Sounds like your parameters are right on. Do you have driftwood in the tank? My royals grind up a fair bit of wood each week. They don't eat the wood as much as they gain nutrients from the byproducts (simple sugars) of the bacteria living in the surface of the wood. I feed my royals sinking catfish pellets, rabbit pellets, earthworm sticks, bloodworms, kiwi halves, cucumber, raw potato slices, anacharis plants, zucchini, and blanched spinach leaves. I use a solid wood clothes pin screwed to a flower pot bottom (with teflon screw/nut) to hold the large floating veggies/fruits in place.

 

[Big Business]

sounds like a cool trick. you have any pics? it's hard to visualize

yup I have some driftwood in there.

i've always wondered if it mattered what kind of wood it was. a lot of the wood that you buy is just sand blasted roots. African root wood has different nutrients than most other types of wood. The wood I have in there now was pulled out of a swamp in Florida years ago. But that’s all probably in another thread

 

[fishnutham]

do you remember what his belly looked like i lost a gold nugget special order and he had sunken gut sometimes caused by starving and internal parasites always check the belly for sunken or bloated belly then follow oddballs feeding advice he has some monster plecs good stuff....

 

[Oddball]

If you buy a panaque with a sunken belly, isolate it in a quarantine tank. The concavity can be due to malnourishment and/or parasites. I feed all my new arrivals Whattley's community formula with garlic extract to clear their digestive tracts of parasites and VHP (Very High Protein) to bulk them back up before placing them in the community..

 

[rasdbo]

oddball, where's the pics?

 

[Oddball]

oddball, where's the pics?

My panaque pics are all over the site.

The blue next to the mouth shot is the 1/2" blue back of the hospital tank he was in.

The royal was almost 19" in this pic. He's sitting on a 20" tank cover.

 

[rook45]

oddball is the man...the pleco man

 

[dapike1979]

Very Nice Looking pleco!