Help with zebra plecos?

gex18 · Post by **gex18** » 20 Jun 2004, 21:02

I have recantley purchased 3 zebra plecs (at Â£165 for the group) and will soon be getting some more! I have had then 48 hours and they are now in a 400 litre discus tank! My question is what do you guys feed them on and when?

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 20 Jun 2004, 22:27

HI!

Well, it is not very clever to buy a fish and then to be preoccupied by what they might need, it is certainly wiser to do so before buying them...

If you browse through the site, you will find a Catfish of the Month article about H. zebra, also if you use the serach button in the control panel on the top of the page, and type Hypancistrus zebra, you will find a lot of topic about that subject...

Good Reading..
Cheers
Yann

polkadot · Post by **polkadot** » 21 Jun 2004, 08:46

They're carnivorous so they'll need a meaty diet, eg carnivorous pellets, bloodworms, etc.

fishboy20 · Post by **fishboy20** » 21 Jun 2004, 15:20

Since we are on the subject of zebra plecos here what I feed mine: bloodworms (a few times a week), brine shrimp (a few times a week), O.S.I. micro-pellets (main ingredient is krill meal), new life spectrum pellets and tetramin/sera flake foods. This diet seems to have worked out really well for the plecos. They are fat happy and the two females I think I have, have given me the biggest batch of babies so far at 15! I found 9 more babies today, maybe there are even more in that tank?!?!
Anyways, besides food, a temperature around 82-84 (which im sure your discus are in), pH of 6.5-7.5 seems fine for them, hardness >120ppm if possible. Give them plenty of water changes and caves. Although they are found in rocky areas, they do except driftwood with caves to them (hence where my fish have their spawning hole).

fishboy20 · Post by **fishboy20** » 21 Jun 2004, 15:26

I should also mention current. They love current a lot. Even the young I have swim against the current although I should say I do not have much in the form of water flow. 300 gph in a 75 is not as much as it could have but the tank does get a turn around of 5 times an hour. A better turnover would be closer to 8-10 times.
One more thing I should mention about zebra pleco babies that I am finding, they are large baby fish right after they absorb their yolk sac. The 20 babies I know have, were all about 4/5 of an inch long 1 week after absorbing their yolks. The first batch which is now 6 weeks old are well over an inch. Anyone else share this experience? Quite amazing to see such large fry swimming in the tank. To me this would make sense since they have such small broods. If they weren't large to begin with, how would this fish do well in the wild as a species? Of course this is captivity we are talking about but still interesting to note these observations.

doctorzeb · Post by **doctorzeb** » 21 Jun 2004, 16:07

Bloodwworms a couple times a week, the odd slice of corgette, the odd crushed frozen pea, and as an all-rounder, Tetra Prima granules.

cheers

rob

gex18 · Post by **gex18** » 21 Jun 2004, 20:14

Cheers guys

! Well i feed my discus frozen disucs mix (which composes of shrimp, prawn and other meaty goodies), beefheart mix, tetra prima, hikari cichlid pellets, hikari algae wafers amd baby brine, this ok? The tank the zebras are in is a juwel rio 400 (60" x 20" x 24") and is filtered by an eheim 2329 wet dry filter, an eheim 2317 filter, a rainbow lifegard fluidized bed and a TMC vecton 15w uv sterlizor!