Feeding Help with L333,L201,L134 & L046

[AussieSam]

Hey guys,
Pretty new here, just wanting peoples opinions on diet for my Ls.

I have 4x Lots of Ls, All in their own Tanks (each 4Ft Tanks, with minimal Plants, plenty of caves, etc).
4x L201s (I think 3x Males and 1x Female, but one male may be a female.)
4x L134s (I think 2M2F)
7x 333s (only just at adult size, so expecting breeding in the next 6 months)
5x 046s (All Juvenile. Growing them out to breed with in a few years. 1@ 3cm, 3@ 4cm, 1@ 5cm)

I have an assortment of food that I give them, but have really just been winging it.
I have available: (Some are for my community display tank but can be shared)
-Hikari Algae Wafers
- Repashy Super Green
- Repashy Grub Pie
- Homemade Mix (Beef Heart,Salmon, Spirulina,Green Prawns, Spinach, Carrot, Peas, garlic, One Multivitamin tab)
- Spectrum Community Sinking Pellets
- Vegies (Zucchini, Cucumber, Lettuce, Etc)
- BloodWorm
- Frozen Artemia Brine Shrimp

I was thinking about getting some Hikari Sinking Wafers, or Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets also.

Each tank has an Autofeeder that can handle flake or pellets, so bonus points for anything i can use in that on a daily basis (even if only in very small amounts)

SO whats everyones suggestions on feeding? Also roughly how much? Seeing as everyone only comes out at night, its hard to tell how long everything takes to eat.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bekateen]

Hi AussieSam,

Most of the foods you have listed sound good to me, but I would encourage you to get rid of the beef heart immediately from your home-made food. Everyone I talk to says beef heart is a bad thing for fish.

I have L201 and Peckoltia compta (L134) also. I feed mine live black worms, Omega shrimp pellets, Repashy bottom scratcher mixed with Repashy soylent green, boiled "whiteleg" shrimp (a human food purchased at grocery store), and raw sweet potato. I don't think the L201 touch the sweet potato, but as you said, they come out at night so I'm not sure.

Good luck, Eric

P.S., most of the people I've seen online from Australia say it's really difficult to get good interesting plecos in Australia. You have quite an impressive collection. Good for you.

[TwoTankAmin]

First off, I completely agree with Eric's advice about not feeding beef heart. Next, in many cases, the absolute best foods are the live ones.

When it comes to the smaller meat loving omnivorous plecos, when thet are small they are able to eat many of the same foods they do as adults. I would add that I believe very young Hypancistrus (and maybe other similar sized plecos with similar dietary requirements) need a vegetable component in their diet. It is also important to realize that tiny plecos cannot chew something like a whole bloodworm and can choke to death trying to eat it. Finally, for most fish, a somewhat varied diet is usually a good idea.

The upshot for me has been two lists of food. One for what never to feed the kids and what is fine. Small foods like BBS, cyclop-eeze, decapods, copepods are all pretty good for fry. I prefer these frozen over freeze dried. But also, something like a sinking wafer or stick will work. Once in the water these will start to soften up making them easy for small mouths to grab a small bite from them. Here is an example- the wafer was an AquaDine product.


I have become a big fan of Repashy. I like the Bottom Scratcher, Soilent Green and Spawn & Grow. I tend to mix the Scratcher and the S&G with 20% to 25% Soilent. This pretty much makes if a good food for breeders, juvies and fry alike.

I also feed a decent amount of frozen food to the larger plecos- blood worms, brine and mysis shrimp. Because, I like to leave offspring in the breeder tank, when feeding these foods I first add BBS etc. for the babies before I add the bigger stuff. This has seemed to work OK in terms of my not inadvertently choking fry. (I am a big fan of the Hikari brand for frozen.) Finally, I try to avoid feeding the more commercial type flakes, wafers and sinking sticks/bits. But sometimes, when pressed for time, I will do so. But these foods are rarely ideal for conditioning adults or growing out babies, imo.

Lastly, I tried feeding zucchini to my plecos but they did not seem to be interested. When I kept Ancistrus, they always ate it as did other fish, but my Hypans would ignore it. When I stopped keeping the bristlenose, I stopped feeding zucchini.

As always, the above are just this fish keeper's experiences and way of doing things. It does not mean it is either the best nor only way to feed.

p.s. Re Repashy: While they are not catfish, my clown loaches, especially the two huge ones, absolutely shred Fruut Luups which is a Repashy food formulated by Dr. Tanner and exclusively sold on his site. Plecos seem to like it as well.