Feeding my panaque

[Industrial]

How exactly do you feed panaque sp. wood? My last emperor pleco just died from starvation and I am wondering if I have incorrect driftwood in the aquarium.

One piece looks like a relatively fresh dried branch screwed into a piece of slate. I am pretty sure that this isn't really edible. The other piece looks like a hunk of wood. It's a bit darker. I am not completely sure on the brand. This one sank right away. This one is kind of soft, and wet strips will come off fairly easily.

Also, I have a bad cyanobacteria problem in the tank right now, and it does coat all of the driftwood within 3 days or so, but I do try to scrub it.

The plecos are fed sliced cucumber every 10 days, and algae wafers every 5 days. They seem to ignore the algae wafers, but they do enjoy the cucumber as long as I put it in right before lights out.

I am wondering, are they starving because they need new driftwood regularly, or their is only a certain kind they eat? Or is it because they need to eat solid foods more often? Could the cyanobacteria be covering up all of their algae that they would normally eat between feedings?

[taksan]

Your plecos are starving because you are simply not feeding them.
Pleco do not digest wood they eat the organisms that live in the rotting wood.
Since we cannot provide these organisms in the quantity required to sustain life in a Aquarium we need to supplement their diet with other things.
Algae wafers (try various kinds Sera is particularity good) and fresh cucumber and zuchinni (at least 3 times per week) as well as bloodworm, brine shrimp and various other sinking pellets should all be fed. The fish need to be fed at least twice daily. Pleco's are grazers and eat basically 24/7 in the wild.

[Richard B]

Mopani wood is intially too hard compared to some old, well aged standard bogwood, in fact most new & "unused" wood is a bit hard. Once wood has been submerged for 6 months or so it is much softer.

As well as cucumber you could try, potato, sweet potato, beans, peas, marrow, celery & a whole host of other vegetable matter. There is a world of foodstuffs that can be used

[DJ-don]

Taksan makes a strong point.

It's like how new people only use bn's to clean algae and dont feed them at all thinking they will only eat algae and poop on the ground. But Panaque's are more complex and a mistake is something you can learn from.

Panaque's a vegetarian. I would recommend feeding them zucchini or cucumber (these two tend to be used the most) but just be careful because it may cause the water to go a bit off if you feed too much or havent changed the water in awhile, especially zucchini. Don't peel the skin though because Panaque's tend to go for the skin first and no need to boil or blanch the vege's a all. You can try other vegetables like the one's richard has suggested but i tend to stick with these.

I would tend to feed wafer foods not as often as the vege's because they have a lot of protein which isnt healthy but can be taken in moderation and varies the diet too

the way you can feed them is little, but often. Like Takson also mentioned, they are grazers and will constantly eat something all the time.

Also, You can look at MatsP's articles on feeding plecos
http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... es+of+food
http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... ts+what%3F
There are two parts to feeding plecos and they should really help top off what i have said (maybe even more better)

[Linus_Cello]

Look for "bog wood" or "Malaysia bog wood." (As someone said, Moapani wood is too hard). My L204s eat it (and ruining the anubias I try to grow on the bogwood), zuchinni, NLS (new life spectrum) pellets, hikari wafers and "Ken's scraper wafers." Another feeding high veggy option (which I have not yet tried) would be spirulina sticks.

[2wheelsx2]

I feed my panaque yams (orange flesh kind), zucchini, peas, carrots, and on occasion, wafers, but I find 2x a week with a large vegetable seems to do it for them, as well as them grazing on stuff in an established tank.