Panaques and aquarium ornaments.

Shaun · Post by **Shaun** » 16 Aug 2006, 03:48

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that Panaques will rasp away at various aquarium ornaments (plastic, PVC, resins etc) and slowly poison themselves. Is this true?
My Panaque tank is full of driftwood, but there are a few PVC spawning pipes and some resin ones. Would I be better just switching to ceramic breeding caves?
Thanks

Shaun

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 16 Aug 2006, 11:01

We've had this discussion before, and the conclusion was that, yes they will most likely rasp PVC, but unless you're using PVC that isn't suitable for the tank anyways (i.e. coloured with nasty stuff, or some such), it should pass through the same way that sand and gravel would if it was ingested - PVC is pretty tolerant to acids and other "chemicals" that could be found in the digestive tract of a Panaque.

If you read the scientific descriptions of various plecos, you'll find that many of them have "sand" as component of their stomach content. If sand is OK, I'm sure small particles of PVC is fine too...

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Mats

Shaun · Post by **Shaun** » 18 Aug 2006, 01:30

Thanks for that Mat. I think I might leave out resin based caves as they are probably coloured with something. I'll leave the PVC in.
Shaun

ginosanti · Post by **ginosanti** » 18 Aug 2006, 09:11

My experience is that they will prefer to stay around the wood. I have a whole bunch of wood stacked up in the tank. And the panaques are rarely on the filter or on the styroform back.