a nutritional diet for my bottom dwellers

[puffermichigan]

Hey guys and gals,

I was just wondering if you had any advice about a healthy, balanced diet for kuhli loaches and bristlenose plecos. I have a 40 gallon pentagonal planted tank with 6 kuhlis, 2 bristlenose plecos and a small school of neon tetras. I generally feed them all pelleted food 4-5x a week, blanched peas 2x a week, occasionally some mashed up bloodworms (extra from my puffers), and I put cucumber slices in there 1-2x per week. There are also two large pieces of wood for the plecos to go nuts on (I heard it helps their digestion?) The plecos love the cucumbers, but that's all I've ever observed them eating, and since I take such care with my puffers' diet, I want to make sure I'm on track with these guys too. Should I be giving them algae wafers or anything else like that? Vitamins? Fruit? Or is that a huge no-no? I've found contradictory advice out there on the web, and wanted to ask here. Thanks everyone.

[Blaine]

algae discs are good, but a little messy. I use raw potato slices, raw carrots, raw spinach and I just recently picked up these 'Pleco logs' ....they are a high density packed pellet that takes days for them to gnaw through...less messy than algae discs

[RTR]

Many to most raw veggies should be blanched or frozen and thawed to make them more accessible to the fish. Cucumbers do not need pre-processing, but picking out the seeds helps a bit.

[puffermichigan]

Ok, that sounds good. I'll add some blanched carrots and spinach for some more variety and vitamins.

[Blaine]

I never blanch the veggies. I raise and sell hundreds of ABN plecos every year and they do fine with the raw veggies. Not sure about the kuhli loaches tho

[puffermichigan]

I've been in the habit of putting a cucumber slice in the microwave for 10 seconds, then letting it cool in a cup of tank water before putting it in the tank so that my kuhlis will eat it. The plecos don't seem to care if it has been lightly "cooked" like this (they devour it either raw or "blanched" anyway), but if I don't do it the kuhli's won't touch it. I had good success today with a carrot that I blanched (the real way, not the microwave way--I'm not sure a 10 second nuke in the microwave counts as blanching? I guess it "softens," which seems to be the main purpose.)--everyone seemed to eat it once they figured out it was food!

Thank you, RTR and Blaine for your suggestions.

[RTR]

I admit I have not tried cukes and kuhlis - my experience is mostly with the real suckermouh cats, and you can't get them off the cuke until it is just rind. The non-rasping fish are more likely to need the change of blanching or freeze-thaw to "soften" the raw stuff. I use freeze-thaw for dark lettuces and spinach for schoolers and other routine fish that seem to relish veggie treats periodically. I just freeze on cookie sheets overnight and crumble into small plastic baggies, and store those in heavy duty freezer zip-lock bags. Simple for me to do, enjoyed by a lot of fish.

I have not kept Kuhlis in some time. One of these days I want to try to breed them.

[Pufferpunk]

I use melons for my large plecos.

[RTR]

Thank goodness I don't have any large plecos anymore. I have paid my dues on water changes for large plecos. I am too old and tired (lazy?) now.

[puffermichigan]

RTR, that's a great suggestion for lettuce and spinach, I will have to try that. And I'd like to try a piece of melon for them. Pufferpunk, do you just leave it in for an hour or so and then remove so it doesn't mess the water too badly?

I fell in love with kuhli loaches when I was ten and picked out two of them to go in my 10 gallon tank that my parents gave me for my birthday. They lived until my third year of college (about 10 years). They really had tremendous personalities. The ones I have now are more active than I remember my original two being, (I believe) because the tank has a lot of hiding spots (I think they venture out more when they "feel safe,"--my guess) and because I have 6 of them together. They are not "people aware" in the same way that puffers are, but they are so much fun to watch (digging in the sand, hanging from the plants, squirming around making "knots" of kuhli loaches). I highly recommend them, even though at times during the day they do enjoy hiding, and if you happen to have company over, they might say "why don't you have any fish in that tank?" Lol. That's why I added the neon tetras And because I think the tetras are really beautiful in a planted tank.

[RTR]

The increased numbers likely account for their improved visibility. That is pretty standard Kuhli behavior - the more you have, the "braver" (more visible) they are.

I love kuhi knots - they make my wife squirm and feel quesy.

[puffermichigan]

I love them too

It's so funny, I think at least once a day I take a break from my studies because my fiance hollers, "omg, you have to come here, be really quiet, you won't BELIEVE what the kuhli loach is doing!"

[Pufferpunk]

I strap a piece (size of piece depends on numbers & sizes of plecos) with a rubberband, to a rock. I include the rind, to keep the meat together. It can be munched on for days. If the piece is too large, it will rot. The smaller chunks can clog your intake strainers, so keep an eye on that.

[Clowntje]

Since my Clowns got so big i dont boil my veggies anymore. The smaller fish in the tank like the cardinals learned to wait to eat the veggies untill the clowns start to eat messy.

My Barbs also eat the veggies unboiled and love it. Since a couple of weeks i also have crosseilus siamensis in the same tank and they also eat it unboiled.

I feed them cucumber, courgete, lettuce, carrot rasp ( i rasp this because only my suckermout catfish could eat it but my clowns went nuts after i rasped it for them), all biological from our own garden so they get less of it in the winter. I also tried Apple and melon.

[puffermichigan]

Woot! Quick update--my crew loves loves loves the pleco logs I got last week (thx for the suggestion, Blaine). I put a couple in at a time otherwise my little guys both try to suck on the same one. Which is a little funny, but I think that Booger (the albino one) gets a little too aggressive toward the other one if I don't put in at least two, that's how much they like them. I think they are actually much more nutritional than the algae discs too (I compared the backs of the packages). They're all getting a more balanced diet now with more variety of veggies--thanks very much for everyone's input.