l204 needing some advice

[Luis.Ventura]

Good morning everyone,
I have a couple of L204 and a third element is to arrive soon, the ones I have I am sure they are a male (younger) and a female (older), but my question is not about sexing is about the tank.
I have a 52 Us gallons Tank(I think...its 200 Liters) 3 pumps of 900Lph and a Fluval 405 that is 225gph to move water around I think these are more then enough no?
The bottom is filled whit 1/2 cm of not abrasive dark sand and the rest is all wood (loads of wood).

Now my problems are....
I was warned that L204 are a beautiful but filthy animal because of the amount of wood they eat, I do clean the tank every week but I feel that is not enough, there is always some specks in the water column, in the morning I have a mountain of dirt in the same spot every single day (the water takes it there), in every weekly cleaning I have the feeling that I should take all the wood out so that i could properly clean it, but that way i would disturb way to much my little pretties.
how can I improve my cleaning's?

All Deco is Wood, loads of wood, walls of wood piled up in the laterals and back of the tank leaving space in the front so that the fish could swim, I am not sure if it is to much wood in there since I never seen a L204 only tank.
a advice in the wood quantity/disposition/whatever would be really helpful since I am kinda lost here.

I am using a mix of clay caves and coconuts caves, I have seen somewhere that they like more bamboo/coconuts/woody caves, so I am using the wood in the tank to stuck the coconuts to the side walls where if needed I can take the black paper that I put there and see if I had any eggs.
I am not sure if I am doing it right, should the coconuts be on the floor or I can continue to put them on the sides?
the more caves I put the better it is no?

In the tank I also have sterbai corys and emeral corys (brochis) and one lazy platydoras armatulus and lots of cherry shrimp.

[MatsP]

I'm sure around 3700 lph turnover in a 200 liter tank is more than enough to keep these fish happy - it's about 18 times turnover. I have tanks that I've had (theoretically) 20x turnover in, but that's certainly enough for any species that likes flowing water - I'm sure they can technically tolerate more.

As to "keeping the tank clean", I think with these fish, that's just impossible... One could perhaps construct some sort of mechanism that collects the dirt in some way [a coarse filter of some sort, or perhaps some sort of "sand-trap" [1] type filter - but it would require frequent cleaning to avoid anaerobic activity], but it's not possible to make the fish not produce sawdust, and that will simply make the tank messy.

[1] A sand trap is something used for the road-drains and such, to catch sediments [sand mainly, hence the name]. To make a sand-trap, you would use a fairly deep container, such as a bucket, and let the sediment ridden water run into the bucket, and use an overflow outlet at a quite high level to get the water back out again. The sediment will settle at the bottom of the bucket. You could make one of these if you have a pump to pump water out of the tank into a bucket above the tank. It MAY work to use an external filter with no (or nearly no) media in it, but chances are that it gets a bit too turbulent.
--
Mats

[Luis.Ventura]

Thanks Mats,
shod I keep the tank full of wood?
is there any problem if I get a solution to clear the water of the tea colour aspect?

does anyone have some L204 or similar catfish Tank pics?

[MatsP]

I have a picture in "My Aquaria" of my P. maccus tank, which has quite a bit of wood in it.

The "tea-colour" would go away with carbon filtration - but I wouldn't worry about it - it makes the tank look natural.

Less wood wouldn't make it "better" for the fish, so I don't see the point of that.

--
Mats

[Simon86]

Hello

As Mat allready wrote, it's almost impossible to have a clean tank.
I have 8 adults of this beautiful pleaco myself in a 120 x 60 x 30 tank.
The amount of wood doesn't matter. As long as you have wood in the tank, which is needed, you have the dirt

I use a stream pump (5000 L/h) with a filter pad arround. And because this pump is much faster than my main filter, most dirt goes in there. So I clean the filter pad at least once a week and remove most dirt like that!

I can try to make a good picture this evening or tomorrow.

Cheers Simon

[PlecoCrazy]

I would leave the wood in there. That will make them feel the most at home.
As Mats said it is nearly impossible to keep the tank free of debris as they eat all the time.

The tea color of the water will not be so bad after a few months. I use the tea color to let me know that I've put off a water change too long.

I'm sure you can add chemicals to clear up the tanins in the water but I prefer to use as few chemicals as possible on my tanks.
I think carbon may help remove tanins from water and that would be fine but needs changed frequently. you might verify that.

Basically anyway you look at it whether through filters or siphoning its going to require frequent maintenance unless you use some creativity with automatic water changes of some sort.

I have never hear of putting caves on the sides of the tank like that but it might not be something bad to tryout. I've always put mine on the bottom but your idea may hold some merit.

[krazyGeoff]

Thanks Mats,
shod I keep the tank full of wood?
is there any problem if I get a solution to clear the water of the tea colour aspect?

does anyone have some L204 or similar catfish Tank pics?

Hi Luis,
See tank 8 in my aquaria.
I have since doubled the amount of wood.
Filtration is Fluval 405
Circulation = 2 x Tunze 6045 = 9,000 ltr/hr

I vaccume the tank once a week, and perform a 20% water change.
Normally it is quite clear, but as spring has started the tank has gotten dirty. I am hopeing that they are preparing for the rainy season, as they have gotten quite fat.
If I get concerned about the dirty water then I hang a hang on filter on the side and fill it with filter wool.
I never worry about the tea colour as long as the pH is stable.
Cheers

Geoff

[Simon86]

Hello Again

My tank (sorry for the bad quality, spent all money for my tanks and plecos )


On left side is the streaming pump with filter pad arround. Also on left side I have some wood with clay caves under it. From middle to right side I have like 5 more clay caves different size and then the main filter.

Cheers Simon

[Mod edit: Make image inline instead of thumbnail link --Mats]