CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

hey yall, i assume most people on the forum have a pleco of some description in their tanks. their pretty cool fish all be said, however not the best tank cleaners in the world.

my problem is...

the sheer amount of waste produced by the ever growing fish. the pleco eats any left over "chucks" of prawn and meat as well as algae tablets.

he doesnt eat flake or sinker pellets but they soon get removed anyway.

every day i clean the gravel off with a tank vac, and every day, about an hour later there is huge strings of crap all over.

any one got any tips on controlling the waste.

i got him in a tank with a 400l an hour UGF (powerheaded) and a 500l an hour internal cannister.

any tips anyone??

Not sure on how to help out, if you don't feed em, then no waste, but then they don't live too long!!!. I noticed your tank size is only about 30 gallons, so with the size of the fish, I guess your gona have to do a lot of cleaning. With my O's I feed them only one pellet at a time, and untill they eat them, no more, I have found they don't waste as much. I guess they are greedy....hehe
but if I put in more than one each, at a time, they just get as many in their mouth, as they can fit, then out shoots a big mess!!!

yeah, the tank is on the small side but im low on funds due to college and such latly. im getting a 4 fter in a few months. the food waste isnt really an issue.

my O never does that, he waits til the pellets have gone really REALLY soft then just takes them one by one when im not looking. (smart little *******)

either way, i assume the crap strings will be sorted when i get the larger tank and better external filter. cheers

Yes, unfortunatly, I would agree. Sounds like your keeping it pretty clean for em, not much else the fish could ask for!!!

There are some little leech/worm type fish ive seen that clean up and eat the waste produced by other fish, they live mainly in the gravel and slide about underneath eating stuff under there.

Also id try Corydoras Cats they seem to clean up well - my dad kept a load with some o's a while back and said they were ok.

Dont think you can control the waste, they're poo machines!!!