Mustard spot pleco (Panaqolus albomaculatus) project

[bekateen]

Hi All,

Following from this thread (Quick answer needed for an imminent pleco purchase: Guahiborum, gold nugget, or Panaqolus?), I just picked up 3 mustard spot plecos (

Panaqolus albomaculatus

, LDA031) at a LFS. Soon I will post a variety of photos of new fish in this thread in order to start sexing the fish, and ultimately this will lead to a spawning project for me (well, not for me, for the fish). In the meantime, I have a question about feeding these plecos.

When I think of

Panaqolus

, I think wood eaters. The CLOGs for most of these spp. are filled with generic feeding instructions which say essentially, "feed them wood, lots of wood, and some veggies like courgette or sweet potatoes; feed meaty foods sparingly, when trying to condition for spawning." (I'm paraphrasing)

But for

Panaqolus albomaculatus

, the CLOG's feeding instructions are:

Sinking pellets, live and frozen worm type foods.

By sinking pellets, I'm presuming vegetarian pellets like algae pellets. But besides that, these feeding instructions are very different from that for every other Panaqolus. Is albomaculatus different from other Panaqolus in its feeding habits? Or is this just the remnants of an old CLOG edit which should be updated to say, "prefers to eat wood?"

Thanks, Eric

[Jools]

They look like nice clean specimens.

Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks. Yes I agree. I believe they are wild-caught, but the fins are in remarkably good shape. Their bellies are definitely a little thin, and they were showing some stress coloration, but I think the latter is to be expected, especially after all the handling for photographs.

[Mol_PMB]

Nice!

My first ever pleco was supposed to be an L106, but I ended up with something else when he got trapped in some wood at the shop.
I hope you enjoy these little spotty fish!

[verbal]

Good luck. They are neat fish.

[bekateen]

Thanks folks. If you pray/wish for anything, lets do so for a mix of males and females. I bought only three. Three is an awfully small number to start a breeding group with, but knowing how big they will eventually grow, I didn't want to buy more and overcrowd the tank. Even at 65-75mm, they looked a lot alike in that store and were harder to sex than I expected; so we're dependent on some extremely questionable judgments I made in the store as to the genders of these fish. (Truth be told, unless they were all still "immature" at this size and completely unsexable, I could have easily imagined that all the fish in the store were of the same sex).

My first ever pleco was supposed to be an L106, but I ended up with something else when he got trapped in some wood at the shop.

What happened to the L106 caught in the wood? Did it die, or was it just not accessible for capture? What did you end up getting? Yeah, I think the L106s are the "cat's meow," and I still plan to get a bunch as soon as they come back on the wholesaler's list.

Is albomaculatus different from other Panaqolus in its feeding habits? Or is this just the remnants of an old CLOG edit which should be updated to say, "prefers to eat wood?"

Anybody have an answer to this Scooby-Doo mystery?

Cheers, Eric

P.S., Unrelated to my plecos, the LFS received, as part of the same order, a large number of wild-caught corydoras, mixed species, and a large number of what was supposed to be just wild-caught

Corydoras trilineatus

. I could see at least 4-5 spp. (I suspect ornatus, schwartzi, agassizii, something with fine dots that resembled agassizii, etc.) in the mixed group, and in with the trilineatus was at least one real

Corydoras julii

(okay, I suppose it could be a "spotted" trilineatus, but I wouldn't know how to tell the difference). I've never seen a live julii before, only ones in photos. If I didn't have so many corys already, I would have bought that julii in a blink-of-an-eye, and any other real julii that might be in the same group. But enough is enough, and sometimes you just need to say "no" to yourself, and accept the prospect that someone else is going to have the good fortune to get a really unique specimen.

[Mol_PMB]

What happened to the L106 caught in the wood? Did it die, or was it just not accessible for capture? What did you end up getting? Yeah, I think the L106s are the "cat's meow," and I still plan to get a bunch as soon as they come back on the wholesaler's list.

I don't know. It certainly wouldn't come out while I was in the shop, and it was the last one they had. The shop owner very generously offered me any other pleco in the shop for the same price: £9.00. At the time I didn't have a suitable tank for a Pseudacanthicus and I thought that might be pushing his generosity too far, so I made a more sensible choice of an L128, which was still a bargain for that price. That did well for a while but died from what looked like a serious heater burn (but the heater was guarded).

I've seen L106s for sale several times since in other shops, but I fell for an L244 as a substitute. They're really hard to find - I did eventually track down a second one but it turned out they were both males.

[bekateen]

@Mol_PMB, you did get a sweet deal with L128. Maybe one day you'll get some L106. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Here are some more photos from side and dorsal views. These photos were taken in the air while the fish sat on a flat surface in order to get a sense of body shape. I still need to crop/resize the photos of the genital papillae; I'll post those later.

[bekateen]

One more fish:

[Jobro]

definitely wild caughts you got there ;) (I am going by dorsal fins, all my wild caughts have dorsal fins like those)

pretty sure the males will have quite some brushes on the tails and it will get easier to tell them apart in a few weeks. Non of them is having the typical male V-shaped body. You might be lucky with a female. My bets would be M M F. Because number 3 is the biggest and seems to have the least odontodes. Let's wait for the genital papillae and see if we can use some of the Maccus intel we got.

Definitely shouldn't hurt feeding some standard pleco wafers (not just algae) and a little frozen food to get their bellies round again and revert to more panaqolus specific feeding as soon as they are in shape. Potatoe is supposed to be better for pampering up herbivorous and lignivorous plecos, but some plecos just won't touch it... while frozen food will be eaten by almost all plecos after import. But your 3 don't really look like starving on those pictures. Maybe you wouldn't need the extra carnivourous food at all. Don't measure healthy body proportions by the Maccus, they are usually too fat xD

[bekateen]

Thanks Johannes,

Yes, the 70mm fish (#2) has the largest odontodes on the pectoral fins, and the 75mm fish (#3) has a SLIGHTLY different body shape, but not by much. So I'm inclined to predict male and female for those two, respectively. The smaller one seems to have more of the male shape too, so I too think I might have M-M-F. That's not what I wanted when I picked them (I wanted two females, so as to avoid possible fighting). I think they are not in good condition yet for the males to have strong odontodes on the body sides.

Their tank is outfitted with 4 pieces of driftwood, plus I'm adding small amounts of the following foods: algae wafers and "omnivore" wafers, a slice of fresh sweet potato, and last night I added a couple of thawed "cocktail shrimp," pretty much exactly what you suggested above. To date, I have not caught anybody eating yet, although yes they do not look thin. And I also haven't found much poop yet either. I think they still need more time to settle in before conclusions can be drawn about what they like to eat.

What do you mean about the dorsal fins and wild caught? The slightly tattered edge of the fins? The size of the fins?

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

The slightly tattered edge of the fins?

Exactly, I've never seen this on domesticated plecos, only on wild ones. It will cure at some point and be all back to perfect fins at some point. But right after import they look like this.
Well, plecos in very bad treatment (like way too many in a small tank over a long time) could look the same. But your fish are looking pretty damn good on everything except the dorsals and a breeder would take better care for his offspring (6cm+ panaqolus with flat belly? Just look at your maccus, this is how a domesticated panaqolus will look like after 1-2 years). Those are definitely wild caughts in my opinion. Domesticated plecos would also eat from day 1 or 2 - they are not that picky.

thawed "cocktail shrimp"

Did you have any success with those on other plecos, yet? Tried it on my wild L260 and L168 lately, they didn't really touch it much. Had to remove it the next morning
I did read on many sites that plecos would actually love it, just like mussel or fish fillet (though I didn't try any of those yet). Mine didn't like it. Not sure if I should offer it again?

[bekateen]

The slightly tattered edge of the fins?

Exactly, I've never seen this on domesticated plecos, only on wild ones. It will cure at some point and be all back to perfect fins at some point. But right after import they look like this.

Yes, the fish are in remarkably good condition for post-importation. The wholesaler takes pretty good care of them before shipping them out to the LFS. Actually, I think the dorsal fin appearance is not really torn much, but the curved edges just reflect the fins not fully expanded. But that is not to say that the fish don't have some fin damage. There is a small amount of pectoral and caudal fin damage on each fish, so even if not the dorsals, I agree with you that the fin condition shows the history of the fish.

thawed "cocktail shrimp"

Did you have any success with those on other plecos, yet? ... Mine didn't like it. Not sure if I should offer it again?

No, I've seen no sign of my plecos eating the shrimp yet.

To be honest, I haven't owned that many plecos; I had a Pterygoplichthys pardalis for a while but it ate pleco pellets, and I bought that pleco naively, not knowing how big it would get. Then I sold it when it outgrew my tank. Since then (and until now with the mustard spots), I've had only clown plecos and albino bristlenoses. The ABNs spawn when you put them in the aquarium, so I've never needed to "condition" them with special foods like shrimp. I tried the shrimp on my clowns twice (see this thread: Will clown plecos eat shrimp? Is raw or cooked better?), but they wouldn't touch it. So now I'm trying it with the mustard spots, not because I think they'll eat it, but because this species' CLOG has the feeding instructions that are different from all other Panaqolus.

Should you try it again? Probably yes. I also had trouble getting my clowns to eat raw sweet potato. They ignored it the first few times I served it to them. But one day, they discovered it and now they eat it every time I put it in the tank. So maybe likewise, there is a learning curve for these new foods (just like with human babies... and teenagers): They need to be exposed to new foods a few times before they figure out it's food.

But who knows? (someone, I'm sure)... These are Panaqolus and maybe they just like their wood.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

UPDATE: I've had the fish in quarantine for 7 days now. They still look healthy, but so far I've been concerned that I was seeing no significant feces in the tank. These are

Panaqolus

for goodness sake - there should be sawdust poop all over the tank if they're feeding.

To cover all bases, I've been offering a continuous supply of driftwood (Malaysian driftwood and an unknown type), algae wafers, fresh sweet potato, and thawed cocktail shrimp. So far I haven't seen them touch anything; I've been removing the sweet potato and shrimp completely uneaten, and I've been vacuuming out uneaten, fungusing algae wafers... but still no poop so far.

I asked the question earlier about their dietary habits (in consideration of the CLOG notes which differ from those of all other

Panaqolus

), but alas no answers followed. The one set of reassurance I've found is also in the CLOG, in the personal comments left by Registered Keepers: a few keepers mention that these are in fact good wood eaters, and they mention that these eat algae tablets, zucchini, freeze dried shrimps, and potato. But up until now, none of these seem to be working for my fish.

Fortunately though, everyone eventually gets hungry. This morning, one week after purchase, I awoke to find significant amounts of dark brown poop throughout the tank. So it appears that wood is the preference of my mustard spots for now - no orange poop yet. Sweet potato untouched, shrimp and algae wafers untouched. But somebody's pooping wood, and for me, that's a relief.

I can't say for sure that all three fish are eating well, but at least someone is. And so far, none of them seem skinnier than on the day I bought them, so I'm hoping that means all three are eating now.

Behaviorally, they are not particularly outgoing or bold, but they don't hide much either. What they really like to do is hang upside down under slate stones, and underneath a large floating piece of driftwood in the tank. So far, they are avoiding, or at least not using, the bamboo and PVC caves and pipes I provided.

I used an HD video camera (not my usual pocket camera) to make better resolution videos of the plecos' undersides, hoping to get good records of their genital papillae. As soon as I can figure out how to get these videos off the camera, I'll post them in this thread.

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

I found that my L397s very much prefer to eat softer woods - the usual mopani, bogwood etc sold for aquaria are too hard. Oak, beech, coconut husks and some unidentified softer branches I have are all very popular.

[bekateen]

I found that my L397s very much prefer to eat softer woods - the usual mopani, bogwood etc sold for aquaria are too hard. Oak, beech, coconut husks and some unidentified softer branches I have are all very popular.

Thanks for the tip, Paul.

I don't know what the "unknown" wood is in my tank; I picked it up on a beach in Northern US, near the Canadian border. The wood has been in the tank for several months now and still floats. But these mustard spots like to cling to the underside of it and hang on just below the water surface.

I've got more of the Malaysian driftwood, along with Manzanita (which is also pretty hard, as people have described it for me) and more unknown wood, in with my clown plecos, and they seem to be finding something they like in there.

On your advice, I'll keep my eyes open for some of the softer varieties you mentioned. If nothing else, it will represent a nice treat and a change of diet for the plecos. Thanks.

Cheers, Eric

[MarlonnekeW]

Very beautiful fish!

Good luck with them and hopefully you can breed them in the future.

[bekateen]

Thanks, MarlonnekeW.

I found that my L397s very much prefer to eat softer woods - the usual mopani, bogwood etc sold for aquaria are too hard. Oak, beech, coconut husks and some unidentified softer branches I have are all very popular.

If coconut husks are good, does anybody know whether or not we can use the stem-like portion (technically the petiole; it's not a stem) of palm fronds (from any palm tree, not specifically coconut palm trees) as food for plecos? Is that a safe option for food? We have lots of decorative palms in our area, and it is common for palm fronds to blow down.

Thanks, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,

If coconut husks are good, does anybody know whether or not we can use the stem-like portion (technically the petiole; it's not a stem) of palm fronds (from any palm tree, not specifically coconut palm trees) as food for plecos? Is that a safe option for food? We have lots of decorative palms in our area, and it is common for palm fronds to blow down.

I've no practical experience of using palm petioles as food, but palms like Attalea phalerata would be common along rivers across Amazonia, the Pantanal etc.

cheers Darrel

[Jobro]

Coconut husks are truly good. Everybody should try it for their plecos. I just cook them for 1-2minutes if I put them into newer / smaller tanks or put them without cooking into bigger tanks. No need to remove the "hairy" stuff on the husks, my plecos seem to eat that within some weeks.

No Idea about palms though, I could imagine that a stem could start rotting under water. the fronds might be a better try for starters. Or maybe just a thin "slice" of the stem.

I only use bog-wood. In germany it's called "Moorkienholz". This is very soft and the panaque seem to eat it with huge delight. Even the tiny clowns can easily rasp graters from the wood. I find tiny pieces of wood throughout the tank. No idea if it's exactly the same what you guys would call bog-wood in the US. Maybe compare the pictures from google to each other.

[bekateen]

Yeah, I don't know what "bogwood" is. I always thought the term was essentially a nickname for any scraps of wood that were collected in a bog or swamp (not a particular species or genus of tree). Implicit in this is that the wood was dead and decaying.

Nowadays, LFS in my area sell packaged Mopani wood pieces, and sometimes processed grapevine tangles (by processed, I mean sand-blasted to strip the bark off them.

No, I didn't mean to suggest an entire palm frond, LOL. My aquaria are only 10-20 gallons in volume! I meant smaller fragments of the petioles, the stem-like portion of the palm frond which connects the frond to the tree trunk.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Yeah, I don't know what "bogwood" is. I always thought the term was essentially a nickname for any scraps of wood that were collected in a bog or swamp (not a particular species or genus of tree). Implicit in this is that the wood was dead and decaying.

The original "Bog Oak" (which is often Scots Pine, Pinus sylvestris) is semi-fossilised wood from peat bogs. It was uncovered when the peat was cut for fuel. (http://www.burrengeopark.ie/wp-content/ ... ogwood.pdf)

It hasn't decayed fully, because of the nutrient poor, acidic, low oxygen environment, and may be thousands of years old.

It wouldn't have any nutritional value, all that will be left is lignin and tannic substances.

The nutritional value of wood, and the exact nature of Loricariid xylophagy, has come up a few times, and I think you have? a copy of:
McDonald, R., Zhang, F., Watts, J. E. M., & Schreier, H. J. 2015. Nitrogenase diversity and activity in the gastrointestinal tract........ (http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 14&t=42092).

If you feed your fish Yam, Sweet potato etc. the nutritional content of the wood is probably less relevant than it is for wild fish. I'd try and find some wood that they like to process, and then use that. It maybe that wood that has some degree of fungal infection may be particularly attractive to them.

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Thanks Darrel for that info. Pretty much what I thought - bogwood may be composed of some common species, but itself is not a particular singular species (i.e., bogwood is not a species in a taxonomic sense).

And also evident from your definition is the idea that real bogwood may be collectable/harvestable in nature today if you go out and cut up peat bogs, but otherwise there is no way for modern farmers to "grow" crops of "new" bogwood, as you would grow a crop of corn. Most of the wood I find in local stores is just wood, not bogwood per se. As I mentioned, Mopani wood and grapevines are very common in the LFS around me, and also something sold as "Malaysian driftwood." Actually, the Malaysian driftwood is more common even than the Mopani wood in my area; it's usually sold without any labeling simply as "driftwood." As I look at my tanks, I realize in hindsight that mostly what I have is Malaysian driftwood, not Mopani wood.

Yeah, as long as the fish are pooping a lot and seem to be healthy (and especially considering that I supplement with fresh sweet potatoes and occasional algae wafers), I'm not concerned about the fish getting enough food. But I do like to mix things up a bit for variety sake; and that's why I asked about the palm petioles... That said, I doubt the fish care about variety as much as I do .

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Have a look at "Kinds of Wood /Skeptical Aquarist" (http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/kinds-wood).

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Nice link. Thanks, Darrel.

From this I read that the Manzanita wood, which I collected and aged myself from old dead Manzanita trees, might be bad for my plecos because it still had the papery bark attached. I was working with two naïve impressions, that (1) the papery bark would be good for the tank due to its tannins (never mind the fact that clown plecos are whitewater fish - apparently my mind didn't think that far ahead), and that (2) the papery bark might be a "food treat" for the fish. I always knew that the corky bark of some trees was potentially bad for fish, but I didn't know this also applied to the papery bark on plants like Manzanita. I guess I'd better strip the bark off the rest of my (as yet unused) Manzanita branches.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

From this I read that the Manzanita wood, which I collected and aged myself from old dead Manzanita trees, might be bad for my plecos because it still had the papery bark attached.

I wouldn't be too concerned. I'd just give the wood a brush with a wire brush to remove the flaky bits. If the wood was dead any bark will come off pretty quickly in the tank.

I don't think the presence or absence of tannins in white waters is that relevant either. The streams the

Panaque

/

Panaqolus

spp. are collected in must have sunken wood, it is just that in the white water you have suspended sediment, obscuring other colours, and a few more bases etc.

Have a look at this thread: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 04#p128731>.

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Thanks for the link, Darrel. Well chosen. Actually, that thread knocks down two other issues at once - one more difference between bogwood and driftwood (as I had suspected, it seems to be affirmed in that thread that bogwood is more of a European term and driftwood an American term in the context of aquarium decor) and a reaffirmation that palm would be a good food for Panaqolus.

Too bad @Racoll 's photo was lost... People seemed to like it.

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

When talking about bogwood (moorkienholz) in germany, we are really talking about wood that was "mined" from peat/turf/bog. Whereas driftwood would be wood that you can find on shores of rivers or lakes.

I read that some people are using fresh willow twigs. You guys think the bark will be a problem with willow? Or other fresh twigs, e.g. walnut or oak? Remove the bark or not? The linked threads and websites suggest to remove the bark, but I read at some places they even put in fresh walnut with leaves where others say never put in fresh walnut. Think I'll have to do some tests myself. What could happen when panaque/panaqolus eat bark?

[dw1305]

Hi all,

When talking about bogwood (moorkienholz) in germany, we are really talking about wood that was "mined" from peat/turf/bog. Whereas driftwood would be wood that you can find on shores of rivers or lakes.

I think that would be the same in the UK.

I read that some people are using fresh willow twigs. You guys think the bark will be a problem with willow? Or other fresh twigs, e.g. walnut or oak? Remove the bark or not? The linked threads and websites suggest to remove the bark, but I read at some places they even put in fresh walnut with leaves where others say never put in fresh walnut. Think I'll have to do some tests myself. What could happen when panaque/panaqolus eat bark?

There isn't any nutritional value in the bark itself, but in growing wood the cambial layer and phloem, that lie just underneath the bark, will be relatively nutrient rich.


Have a look at "Wood for Tanks: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=35930>", for some more comments.

cheers Darrel