echinodorus and baryancistrus

losly · Post by **losly** » 18 Apr 2007, 22:21

Hi, my L177 had completely destroyed the echinodorus bleheri. I know that echinodorus barthii and echinodorus osiris are not eaten by baryancistrus. Can you comfirm it?

Another thing: baryancistrus eat echinodorus only when they are young or always

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 18 Apr 2007, 23:08

As far as I know Baryancistrus will always eat/destroy plants, not only Echinodorus but for instance also Anubias and Java fern.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 19 Apr 2007, 10:43

I don't have the same experience - perhaps you're not feeding the Baryancistrus enough other vegetable food?

[If someone offers you nice spinach and riccotta tortellini or old vine-leaves, which would you go for?]

--
Mats

losly · Post by **losly** » 20 Apr 2007, 10:29

The problem is that i give him always some zucchine but the situation is the same

Spinach and ricotta tortellini?I know them very well, i understand but the baryancistrus is not italian

...

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 20 Apr 2007, 10:47

Don't know then. Generally, when a herbivore fish is eating plants, it's because it's not getting enough other food - but I guess it also depends on the plants you have in the tank - I'm not entirely sure which variants of Anubias and Echinodrus I've got, but I've certainly get plenty of both in my tank, and neither are eaten by the fish in my Avatar.

The tortellinis were not intended as apetising for the fish, but for you...

--
Mats

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 20 Apr 2007, 20:27

I have mine in a 75 gal planted discus tank which is entirely planted with E. bleheri, E. amazonicus and E. parviflora Var Tropica. I also have a fair amount of Najas guadelupensis in there.

Other than the Heckels I have about 18 Hypancistrus(3 sp) and one large male common Ancistrus sp 3.
Anyway no problems with plant damage or consumption.
Echinodorus species seem to do very well with the GN and other plecos.

Two things I am sure help for me are that I use a lot of Earthworm sticks and they seem to satisfy all the plecos and discus but it has been an especially good pleco food. The other thing is having sufficent lighting. I'm only using 2 Coral life 48" dual lamp T-5 NO fluorescent lamps(Total 4 lamps) and my Swords are huge and growing fast.

This planted tank has been running for almost five years this way. The types of discus have been the only real changes made over time.

FuglyDragon · Post by **FuglyDragon** » 20 Apr 2007, 21:19

My L177 used to eat the various Ech. species in my discus tank so I eventually moved him into a plantless river style tank where he thrives.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 22 Apr 2007, 21:17

If one tries to predict a fish's behavior they will make a lier out of you everytime.

I have no idea why mine seems satisfed with what I feed it and it pays no atention to my swords. It's the only pleco I keep just for it's looks and only have one. I guess I am fortunate that it never developed a tast for my plants or it would have been moved to a rock and wood river tank as well. So far so good. It was only about 2-3/4 inches when I bought it and is now just a mite short of 5 inches.
Echinodorus just happens to be the Genus of plants that does best for me in the Heckel tank environment

It is definitely the most dominant pleco in the tank

Kostas · Post by **Kostas** » 22 Apr 2007, 21:56

I too had problems with 1 L18 eating my Echinodorus...The funny thing is,i had 2 and only one of them ate my Echinodorus...The other one didnt do any damage to them...
Just as Lary said,you cant predict unfortunately if a gold nugget or any other pleco known in some cases to eat plants if he will indeed eat your plants or not...What you can do is choose which one is more important to you,the beauty of a gold nugget or the beauty of the Echinodorus...If its the beauty of the Echinodorus then dont risk,if its the beauty of the fish,you have nothing to loose but to win if you are lucky and he doesnt eat them...

losly · Post by **losly** » 22 Apr 2007, 23:00

I had an ancistrus before but it didn't eat the bleheri.

Nothing to do: two days ago i tried to replace the destroyed bleheri with the barthii but it's the same. Just the morning after the new echino has been eaten and also now, that the lights are off, i see disconsolately that devil

chewing really merrily my new plant(for me is a little devil)

losly · Post by **losly** » 24 Apr 2007, 16:15

And what do you think about a big anubias?Are also the anubias eaten by baryancistrus?

Kostas · Post by **Kostas** » 24 Apr 2007, 18:15

Anubias can be eaten but generally they are ignored in most cases except if the fish is very hungry...