feeding loricariidae

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 13 Feb 2003, 22:10

Hello,

I wanted to find out how many different types of foods you guys/gals feed your loricariidae. I feed my L 264 live brine shrimp and bloodworms. I've tried feeding him algae waffers, but he doesn't touch it. I've also tried feeding him Tetra Min Tropical Tablets, but he doesn't seem to like them either. I haven't tried feeding him greens. I doubt he'll touch the greens though since he is carnivorus. What other kind of foods are there for loricariidae?

Thank You

Achim · Post by **Achim** » 13 Feb 2003, 22:53

Hi,

I haven't tried feeding him greens. I doubt he'll touch the greens though since he is carnivorus.

Try feeding your L. joselimai cucumber. I was surprised when i realised that my L. heterodon loved cucumber (biting holes in it). Leporacathicus are more omnivorous than carnivorous imo.
I feed my Loricariids mainly large frozen Artemia ("Golden Gate"), black Mosquito larvae and flake food. The limnivorous get greens like cucumber in addition. I only very rarely feed bloodworms though I made some bad experience feeding them and neither like handling them nor the environment they come from (pollution...).

Achim

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 13 Feb 2003, 23:01

I'll see if he likes the cucumber. How long can you keep a piece of cucumber in a tank?

Post by **Silurus** » 13 Feb 2003, 23:07

About 36 hours max. After that it gets kinda squishy and starts rotting.

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 13 Feb 2003, 23:08

Thank you Silurus.

Achim · Post by **Achim** » 13 Feb 2003, 23:11

Hi,

How long can you keep a piece of cucumber in a tank?

Depends on the water quality of the tank (and how fast it is being eaten

.
If it is not eaten or not completely except for the skin, i wouldn't leave it there longer than 24hours.
A piece of cucumber either becomes softer or harder the longer you leave it in the tank (You can virtualy classify tanks by "cucumberbehaviour"

. I know that sounds funny, but i made that experience. I guess it depends on the quantity of bacteria etc. that decompose the cucumber. If you realize that the cucumber starts to decompose or even water turbidity, remove it immideatly.

Greetings... Achim

edit: Heok Hee stop posting faster than me ! ;) ;)

Post by **Shane** » 13 Feb 2003, 23:13

Yellow and gren squash last much longer, but it is rare that the cucumber (in my tanks anyway) lasts more than one night. Spinach works well as do asparagus and broccoli stems. Green beans are also a real favorite.
-Shane

BK · Post by BK » 13 Feb 2003, 23:16

i would also try zuchini if yours shows little or no intrest in cucumbers. my plecos all eat cucumber but go absolutely crazy over fresh zuchini (every thing including skin is gone in 3-6 hours). other pleco foods i have used with moderate success with my different types of plecos are cantaloupe, yellow squash, sweet potato, small shrimp(cheap pinkish ones), spinach, and collard greens. I have heard of others feeding mussels and clams from the grocery store.

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 14 Feb 2003, 00:15

Hi!

Ive never had any meateaters except for my L114 but i feed my L15/77/144 with potatos and they love them...they keep their consistence for about 3-4 days at 26°C i usually throw a small one halved in when im away for a couple of days and when it starts to get soft even corys feed on it...cheap source of food (here at least)

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 14 Feb 2003, 00:24

Is it better to anchor your greens down with a clip, or should i just let it sit on the gravel?

I had no clue plecos ate so many different types of vegies. Thanks everyone.

Cartman · Post by **Cartman** » 14 Feb 2003, 00:35

lets see what do I feed...
Meatier....
diced Shrimp/Prawns (I buy the 50-60 cts fresh at the seafood counter)
Mussels (On occasions i'll cube but lately i'll just split the shell wash out the juices and toss it in, it's always cleaned out in the morning so I just grab my tongs and fish them out, also fresh from seafood counter)
I've tried Oysters but they don't work well because my wife eats them all before i can get them in the tank.
Frozen Bloodworms (Hikari or SFBB)
Frozen Spirulina Enriched Brine shrimp (SFBB, I quit live brine shrimp as I lost a couple fish to some strange diseases and couldn't find anything else to blame.)

Greens....
Spinach
Cucumber
Zuchini
Romaine
Peas
Squash

Prepared foods...
HBH African Attack Sinking Pellets
HBH Graze (Spirulina) Flake
HBH Basic Growth Flake
Cyclopeeze
Wardley Sinking Shrimp Pellets
Wardley Spirulina Tablets
Wardley Algae Tablets (yes they're different than the spirulina)
Ocean Nutrition Algae Tablets

I'm sure i'm forgetting something but this is all I can think of currently w/o going to look.

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 14 Feb 2003, 00:43

Hi!

Potatoes just drop to the bottom with no help...with cucumber i attach a slatestone to it with a rubberband...

I forgot that ive tried beans, boiled eggwhite (i did it only once cauz im not sure if has too much proteine), almost everything thats green...

S. Allen · Post by **S. Allen** » 14 Feb 2003, 01:07

;) here's the list

Meat/prepared
Earthworm flakes
Spirulina flakes
Staple flakes
Cichlid flakes
Earthworm pellets
Shrimp pellets
Sinking Carnivore pellets
Sinking pellets
Spirulina wafers
Salad shrimp
Bloodworms
Brine shrimp
Plankton
Blackworms

for veggies it's mainly just cucumbers, although sometimes Nori will last long enough to be eaten.

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 14 Feb 2003, 04:28

S. Allen wrote:Meat/prepared

What do you mean by meat/prepared? Actual store bought meat?

Post by **Dinyar** » 14 Feb 2003, 07:49

Sorry, joining this thread a bit late.

Where I live, "bloodworm" is synonymous with "blackworm". Blood/black worms are a freshwater oligochaete, order Lumbriculida, species Lumbriculus variegatus. They don't come from polluted water. Tubifex worms do. Blackworms will actually die off quickly in water that's not cool and clean. But sometimes and in some places, tubifex worms (which come from the order Tubificida) seem to be called "bloodworms".

How long veggies like cucumber and zucchini will last in water depends a lot on the water temperature. In warm water, they'll disintegrate much more quickly.

Never tried potatos. Tried sweet potato on a big royal pleco, and that did not seem to go over big. Has anyone tried cooked rice?

Dinyar

ClayT101 · Post by **ClayT101** » 14 Feb 2003, 07:56

My zebras eat:
Frozen Bloodworms
Frozen Brine Shrimp
Hilkari Sinking Wafers
O.S.I. Shrimp Pellets
Hilkari Algae Wafers (Rare Ocassions)

I plan on trying Mussels again. I tried one other time, but it didn't work.

If you are interested in greens such as spinach, I made a pretty cool "pleco feeder" a while back. You can see it my home page: http://clayt101.tripod.com

Achim · Post by **Achim** » 14 Feb 2003, 08:04

Hi Dinyar,

Where I live, "bloodworm" is synonymous with "blackworm". Blood/black worms are a freshwater oligochaete, order Lumbriculida, species Lumbriculus variegatus. They don't come from polluted water. Tubifex worms do. Blackworms will actually die off quickly in water that's not cool and clean. But sometimes and in some places, tubifex worms (which come from the order Tubificida) seem to be called "bloodworms".

I always thought bloodworms = Chironomidae larvae. I was actually referring to them.

Achim

Guy · Post by **Guy** » 14 Feb 2003, 09:51

Hi! I'm new to the group, but seeing as everyone is making a contribution... I used to feed an old Gibbiceps Koi pond floating sticks. It would choose them over anything else. The only drawback was it had to swim on it's back at the surface to hoover them up because they float. It became quite adept at doing this and provided my nephew and niece with endless fun standing on a chair a popping food straight into Gibby's open mouth. As for nutrient content... haven't a clue! It was only a treat!

Guy

S. Allen · Post by **S. Allen** » 15 Feb 2003, 23:45

err... actually, blackworms here are sold live, and are way different than bloodworms, they're not a larval stage of anything. Lumbriculus Variegatus is actually a blackworm, the bloodworm is a totally different species, and, at least as far as most of my books take me, the larvae of the chromiod midge(sp?).

big blue, yeah, I actually buy salad shrimp at the grocery store, the stingrays will rip it to shreds, and small pieces fly out of their spiracles as they chew, the plecos will dive on this. ;) one time I had a stingray eat an earthworm so fast it passed like 3 or 4 inches through it's spiracle, ;) so I had a panicking stingray trying to eat something that was effectively coming out his ear.

T · Post by T » 16 Feb 2003, 01:10

BigBlue, try to get your L 264 to eat some greens.Mine would only eat shrimp, bloodworms and squid(he loved this).But he developed an internal problem(hs belly swelled up really bad)and died.I cant be sure but I would blame this on not having enough fibre in his diet.

noki · Post by **noki** » 16 Feb 2003, 04:55

lots of types of fish like blanched Zuccinni... it always disappears completely after about 48- 60 hours... i'm not sure who cleans it up completely among the Plecos, Tanganyikan Synodontis and Loaches, but it always disappears... lots of Cichlids love to eat out the centers, even if they would never eat plants in nature...

i'm not sure of whether there is all that much nutrition for all the fish, but it is a cheap easy way to give the fish some variety and activity... most other veggies, i end up having to clean it out of the tank

Ben · Post by **Ben** » 16 Feb 2003, 10:34

As for fresh foods, I feed mine Cucumber, Zuchini, Canned Green Beans (unsalted), Peas, yellow squash, and spinich. The all around favorite is zuchini. I usued to boil it in the microave for a minute to make it sink, but I have a very high current in my tank, and it always ended up stuck to the filter after a couple of hours. So now I spear it with a small stainless steal rod, to which I attach ti to a rock with elastics. This way it's fresher, keeps more of the viamines. They also seem to prefer the taste of it unboiled. I put a piece about 1/3 inch thick in tonight and it was half gone within a couple of hours, and not that many of them had found it yet

I'm sure it will be all gone when I get home.

I like to alternated with both my fresh foods and my dry foods. I usually buy several kinds of sinking algae wafers and pellets, along with shrimp pellets. I put them all into a

perwear containter and mix it up. It's like Catfish trailmix. Feeding time I just reach in a grab a few of whatever my hands fall on.

Sari · Post by **Sari** » 16 Feb 2003, 14:14

My fish's menu sound a lot like Ben's.
For greens I give cucumber, zucchini, spinach, peas, salad. Zucchini is the most popular, I give an about 5 cm (2") piece every two or three nights, slice it in half, spear the pieces with a teaspoon so it sinks and the pieces are always gone by morning.

I also have a pellet mix, I buy several kinds at once, mix them in a container (not Tupperware, though

) and give whatever comes to hand to keep the menu varied.

Just like Guy's Gibby, my big Common likes to swim on his back (or "standing up") and eat from the surface, especially flakes. I can always hear when he does that, he makes a big slurping sound.

Saara · Post by **Saara** » 16 Feb 2003, 17:13

I have a bit different diet for Hypancistrus and Baryancistrus: with Hypancistrus the emphasis on meaty foods and with Baryancistrus on green foods. My panaqolus seems to like the kind of food I give to hypancistrus but likes veggies more than they do.

I have tried with succes the following foods: brown beans, soya beans, zucchini, cucumber, white cabbage, Chinese cabbage, raw carrot, frozen mosquito larvae, frozen brine shrimp, frozen shrimp, frozen fish, home made frozen food mix (so called räkmix) and various kinds of tablets. Some plecos seem to like certain kind of tablets while the others do not touch them.

My plecos didn't touch the piece of banana and potato I gave them. Caol_ila, did you boil the potato slice before you gave it to them or did you give it to them raw? Did you mean that they started to eat the potato when it had softened a bit in the water?

BobsUncle · Post by **BobsUncle** » 17 Feb 2003, 07:22

My sailfin had an affinity for the following, in order of preference:

Zucchini (god help anything that went near it)
Brine shrimp (dried cubes, went absolutely nuts over them)
Long english cucumber
Tubifex worms (again, dried cubes)
Peas
Shrimp pellets
Spirulina discs

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 17 Feb 2003, 11:49

Hi!

Might be a translation problem but i thought bloodworms are the ones achim showed...i was just going by color of the mosquito larvae (white/black/red)...i dont feed tubifex at all...
Imho you can distinguish the origin by just smelling the food...as bloodworms and tubifex smell like theyre direct from the toilet...

Ive considered feeding mussels, shrimp and stuff like that but to be honest id rather save them for me as i dont have the money to throw them in the tanks...

I also forgot...how about feeding fruits? Apples for example? I tried a tiny piece of Banana but they didnt really accept it well...

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 17 Feb 2003, 13:02

Caol_ila wrote:I also forgot...how about feeding fruits? Apples for example? I tried a tiny piece of Banana but they didnt really accept it well...

At work I can get through several pounds of fruit a week feeding the fish.
Peaches, nectarines, dates, plums, grapes, apples, pears, cherries, mango........
You name it, they'll chew on it. I have found that they are not too fond of citrus fruits, and they mouth banana and then I usually have to remove what's left.
To save the work budget I normally buy the fruit myself and then give whatever I don't eat to the fish.

The vegetables they get are similarly diverse in range, but courgette, potato and sweet potato are top of the list.

BIGblue · Post by **BIGblue** » 18 Feb 2003, 23:52

I have tried feeding my Leporacanthicus Joselimai cucumber and lettuce with no luck. He won't touch it.

I'm going to try fruit next, see how that goes.

Darkangel · Post by **Darkangel** » 19 Feb 2003, 02:46

Just a few of the things I feed that are not in the above posts, pumpkin, spaghettl squash, cooked rice, and frozen mysis shrimp.

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 19 Feb 2003, 19:19

hey guys i just bought a bit cellery and my blue eyed bruno has come out quite curious...hasnt eaten though i think...maybe the aphridisiatic effects will bring me offspring

feeding loricariidae

feeding loricariidae

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