Homing a Longfin Albino BN

[Kestrix]

So I recently (by recently I mean Thursday) purchased a longfin albino BN. S/he's total length is about an inch, maybe a little more. "Alice" as I've come to call it as you can imagine is quite small. Which brings me to my question: How long will she it need to be before I can move it to my 55 gallon aquarium? Right now it is in a 5 gallon so I can keep track of this little pleco. I have been feeding it a mix of blanched cucumbers, hulled peas, spiruella tablets, and sinking catfish tables, as well as whatever it rasps off the driftwood and algae farming back wall.

Outside of being a reminder of Eat Me/Drink Me it has a voracious little appetite and doesn't seem too shy at all.

[Suckermouth]

What's in your 55 gallon aquarium? That'll certainly affect when this baby can be moved in. I could leave baby bn's in my 55 gallon tank and not worry about it, but I don't have anything big in there.

[Richard B]

As Milton says the key is what you yave in the 55...is there anything that will out compete it for food? Or potentially find the long fins a 'nipping target'?

[MatsP]

From the bristlenose's perspective, it can go in a big tank - the sooner, the better. But as both Milton and Richard points out, it depends entirely on what the other fish are in the tank. If there is nothing that will eat it (and they aren't as fragile as they seem - I have had "escapees" from the fry net around 1/2"/13mm in my RIO400 tank, which has 6"/15cm Geophagus in it... And the escapee is now about 2"/5cm long... I probably wouldn't put the 1" fish in a tank with larger fish on purpose, but when they escape, it's near impossible to catch them [and I have plenty more], I'm not going to rip out three large buckets of decorations, disrupt all the plants and make all the fish very nervous, just to rescue a tiny fish that MAY survive...)

So, as a conclusion: Tell us what your fish in the 55g tank is (and how large they are), and we can tell you what size your BN needs to be...

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Mats

[Kestrix]

There's a 4ish inch, possibly bigger, Rineloricaria of some species. It was sold to me has hasemani but doesn't look like one. Also there's a small at the moment group of four

Corydoras panda

, 3 regular and 1 longfin. I've been adding fish slowly to the tank as I QT and find ones I like. I will be getting more pandas as the LFS gets more longfins and tank raised pandas in.

[Suckermouth]

Corys and a Rineloricaria? Yeah, that bn is fine, toss it in.

[MatsP]

Corys and a Rineloricaria? Yeah, that bn is fine, toss it in.

Absolutely. Just make sure it gets a good amount of vegetable - the rest of them will want a more "meaty" diet.

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Mats

[Kestrix]

The meat-heavier ones get sinking catfish pellets and sinking carnivore wafers. Otherwise I feed algae tablets, cooked dehulled peas, and cooked cucumber. I have other vegetables available I'm not sure what would be safe for them. Also I'm not sure my lapine master would enjoy sharing her dinner with a fish.

On that note, is there a list of pleco safe veggies and fruit? Specifically wondering about carrots as I have an abundance of those. Also in regards to my tiny pleco, would it be safe to add a second bn? Eventually I'd like to get either a regular longfin or a calico. I'm quite fond of catfish and I just love their personalities. Nothing amuses me more then when the pandas decide to "include" the whiptail in their piles.

[MatsP]

Carrots may not be the favourite of the fish, but certainly not bad. In the "Feeding pleco's part 1" (link in the "articles" on the side of my post) I list quite a few different "supermarket" items that can be used to feed plecos. In principle, almost anything that is human edible will be fine for the plecos - it's just a case of trying to see what your fish likes.

And yes, adding as second bristlenose would be fine, as long as the tank is large enough (and I think yours is a 55g, so should be plenty of space).

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Mats

[DJ-don]

cooked cucumber.

I would just feed normal cucumber-cooked can cause the water to go murky!

On that note, is there a list of pl*co safe veggies and fruit? Specifically wondering about carrots as I have an abundance of those. Also in regards to my tiny pl*co, would it be safe to add a second bn? Eventually I'd like to get either a regular longfin or a calico. I'm quite fond of catfish and I just love their personalities. Nothing amuses me more then when the pandas decide to "include" the whiptail in their piles.

Here's a thread i started on asking what veges and fruit would suit them

hope this helps!