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How does everybody deal with the saw dust from there royal eating on driftwood.

My small Panaquolus produce more than enough. I dread to think what a big P.nigrolineatus can produce!

Several very large external filters are needed, along with regular cleaning!

In our 90g we have an 11" Royal Watermelon. We ended up having to add 1400 gph of filtration to even try to keep up with the little tyke.

How does everybody deal with the saw dust from there royal eating on driftwood.

Large, frequent water changes. I have not found a filtration unit yet that can keep up with the sawdust production of a healthy Panaque.

-Shane

As a side note, I recently read an artcle (Sorry I dont remember the URL) where the fish keeper allowed the sawdust to build up naturally in a large tank, it settled in the dead spots as would be expected and reached upto 30cm deep in some places. According to the article and the accompaning photos his 2 royal plecs 'dug' a cave type structure in the sawdust pile and spawned in it.

Having given my 2 L191 royals there own 'drift wood snag' tank with sandy bottom I must admit I am amazed how much sawdust they create, and Im also amazed how much they move the sand around, the bottom of the tank is constantly changeing.

Aside from it looking unsightly, is there any reason not to just leave it around?

I just added more filtration to my tank because it tends to build up a lot of "stuff floating about" in the tank, but I wouldn't think that the sawdust from large Panaque would actually cause a problem as such.

If it settles in heaps, you can easily remove the heap with a gravel-cleaner or similar.

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Mats