PlanetCatfish.com

I have two groups of zebra plecs, a group of 5 captive bred juveniles which I have had since March and I have just purchased a group of 5 large wild caught zebs from Pier Aquatics. I have a couple of questions if you dont mind.

For the adults, are there any particular foods you guys recommend (Im from the UK)? I currently feed the juveniles Hikari carnivore pellets, Tetra Prima, New Era Plec pellets, Aquaone Discus bits along with some frozen food. Will that be adequate for the adults as well or should I supplement with some other foods too?

What size tank would you recommend for the new group of five adults? I was planning on it being just them or with a small group of cardinals or such like for some colour that wont bother the plecs but can stand the temperature. I have sand, wood and slate ready for the tank once they are finished in QT. Would cardinals eat fry?

Also, I know that the zebras like a good current and lots of dissolved oxygen, would a powerful filter be enough for them or should I supplement with a power head?

Sorry for all the questions! I appreciate all your time and responses

Thanks
Kirsty

Hi Kirsty

My zebras well all my plecos love eathworm sticks and brineshrimp sticks which you can get from http://www.ta-aquaculture.com/ they used to be uk based but have now moved to malta , but my plecos love there food so i still order from them and there has been no problems with delivery to the uk i also give them some Repashy meat pie everynow and then plus Tetra Prima etc

I use Eheim StreamON along with my filters in all my pleco tanks which they seem to love get the SreamON + if you want to be able to adjust the flow
hope that helps in some way

For zebras mine get fed brine shrimp with sprint ulna and bloodworms etc .... Also a favorite is meat pie by repashy superfoods and new era tropical pellets

Most folks do not buy that number of zebras unless they have the idea that they would like to get them to spawn. So I am going to assume this applies here.

In most cases spawning almost any fish is best accomplished in a dedicated species tank. So this argues for no tank mates and a setup conducive not only to spawning but to growing out fry in the same tank.

Next, considering what you spent for the zebras vs what one has to spend a few tetras, it is different universes. Consider that either set of these fish gets ill and that it can spread to the the other species. Do you want to risk losing one zebra due to the tetras being ill since one zebra is worth more than all the tetras combined?

Finally, zebras are a fairly reclusive fish. They like to hide and they are not aggressive competitors for food. So when housed with other species these things are relevant. They will not often come out in the presence of other fish and it can be hard to determine how well fed they are under such .

As for tank size, I would suggest a 15 gal. is the minimum and a 20 long would be fine- area/footprint is more important than tank height. Well oxygenated water is more important than current per se. For spawning it is best to have current that runs perpendicular to cave mouths rather than into caves. However, I have several different hypans, including zebras, and many will spawn in tanks with not huge or well directed flow. Diet and water parameters (dry and rainy seasons) are more important in this respect.

As for diet, variety is always a good way to go. These fish are omnivores with a predilection for meaty foods. This does not mean no veggies and I have seen it stated that zebra fry need more veggies in their diet than they do as they get older. To that end I feed mine at least once a week on spirulina with garlic in both the form of bits and flakes. I feed frozen blood worms to adults only but also use frozen cyclop-eeze and daphnia for fry and brine, spirulina gut loaded brine and regular brine as well as tubifex worms and mysis shrimp for adults. They will readily take earthworm sticks, sinking carnivore foods and flake as well as veggie sticks. For spawning live foods are ideal.

Basically any food that gets soft in the water so fry and smaller zebras can eat bits of it works fine. You want to avoid blood or other whole worms for small zebras as trying to eat these things can result in their choking themselves to death. If you want to feed these things they must be chopped into smaller pieces first or else avoided for the kids.

Good luck with them.

Hi everyone

Thank you so much for the time you have taken to give me such thoughtful replies. I really do appreciate it.

TwoTankAdmin, you raise some very valid points with regards to tank mates so thanks very much for that. I had wondered about using some small tetras as dithers to help the zebras feel more confident but my group of juveniles are in a species only tank and I do enjoy security of knowing it is only them that can be eating the food i am putting in.

Thanks again everyone!

Another thought guys (sorry!) - my water is very soft, should I be adding anything to keep it stable? I currently do bi-weekly water changes on all my tanks and this so far seems to have prevented any problems.

They come from fairly soft water with a pH in the 7 ish range to lower. They are pretty tolerant of a wide range of conditions. bear n mind these are seasonal spawners which means a fairly pronounced and rapid change in the barometric pressure followed by changes in the temperature, conductivity/TDS and pH of the water is what trigger them to spawn. So of you wish to try to get yours spawning one old enough, you can go from any number of starting levels to another set of parameters which includes even softer. It is the change to which they react.

So one can move them from somewhat hard to somewhat soft or from somewhat soft to even more soft to achieve such a change. How soft is your water- If you do not have a conductivity or TDS meter, have you test results for both your GH and KH? These contribute a lot to conductivity/TDS, but not all of it.