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I've always heard that Plėcos rasp on driftwood (there are so many different kinds, so how do you know what works) to help aid with digesting their food. Albeit many people claim this, but I haven't seen it in any scientific journal or anything like that. Anyone know?

Yes it's true that driftwood contains lignin that the pleco's will rasp at to aid digestion.

As for types of wood you need to be careful what you add to the tank i know beech wood is fine but i always purchase my wood from LFS now to be on the safe side.

Hope this is some help!


Thanks Mark.

I got some "driftwood" at PetCo in the reptiles section, but the only problem is that it looks ugly, but I wanted at least some kind of driftwood for my Plėco, just in case. Maybe I'll be able to find some at the beach this summer or something. Anyone know of any places to buy driftwood online other than eBay? And I never heard of lignins before. What is that?

Lignin, cellulose, and one I keep forgetting -- polyose?? -- make up wood. Cellulose is the part that termites and fungi eat. What's left is mostly lignin (or a lignin bonded to polyose??).

Hi,

http://www.towson.edu/~nelson/Panaque/panaque.html

Do other types of catfish also need driftwood? I've got some Ottos, and occasionally I see them on the driftwood. And how big a piece of driftwood do you need for these guys? My ugly driftwood is pretty big and takes up quite some space. I'd like to take it out if I can and let the fish have more room to swim around.

Mike,

I bought my driftwood at Pet World (or PetSmart?) I searched on line, and what I found was more expensive than what I found in Pet World(Smart?) It's driftwood attached to a piece of slate to keep it weighted down. I went with that because I was afraid that the wood for reptiles may have been treated with something. Anyway, my pleco took a while before he paid any attention to it, but now I notice "rasp" marks on it, and I've seen him hanging on it several time. My other fish pick at it...maybe they see algae or something on it.

Why would they treat driftwood for reptiles? I boiled it anyway. The only thing that would be "bad" that I could see was that it was a lot of pieces of driftwood screwed together. The fish can't really get to the screws though, but I decided to take them out yesterday, because the current formation was too big and clunky. It was more manageable in smaller pieces, even if there aren't as many shady underspots on it now.I've seen my Ottos and Plecos chewing on it. There's always a pieces that's getting stripped off every now and again.

I've seen the ones that have slate attached to the bottom of it at PetCo. They were around $5-15 depending on the size, yea? I didn't know it was real driftwood though. Maybe my memory is lapsing. I didn't buy either because I thought it was fake or because it was too much money for such a small piece. Maybe it was the latter. For $5 I was able to score about 5x the medium size slate-bottomed driftwood. But how much driftwood does a Pleco or Otto need? My tank is already cluttered and full of junk and I'd like to "trim" it down, so to speak. Got a fair amount of plants in there as well.

I've seen pictures of your tank, and you're right, it's LOADED! Anyway, the driftwood I got is real wood, it cost about $10 and I thought it was kind of small, but it works for my tank. As my pleco grows I'm going to have to buy a larger piece, and rearrange a bit for the rock-dwellers, but I have a long time to worry about that.

I had a pair of adult bristlenose in a tank with two small 3/4in. by 5 in. "sticks"...they weren't very large at all...I would still see them chewing on them all the time, so they were likely still getting what they needed even from the two small pieces...
david

Mike, forgot to ask, where did you buy all that wood for $5?

PetCo in the reptiles section. I took out the screws so I could work with smaller individual pieces, five in all. Here's a look at the tank now. Took out the big rock and a smaller rock. A little more room for the fish now. Take a look:

The wood you have in the tank mike is mopani wood i think ? Its the same as the wood i use in my tank and was also obtained from the reptile section for much less money than i had seen anywhere else,The only problem i have ever had with it was the ammount of tannis it holds But a good soaking and regular hot water changes do get rid of the bulk of it.

Thanks Mark