Loaches Online Forum

Hi there,

Just wanted to share with you an article I wrote for my fish club's newsletter. It is about feeding catfish. I have met a lot of people who don't think you need to feed plecos and otos because they should eat algae, don't feed cories, because they are "trash eaters" and people who have made the same mistake I have: Assume that a sucker mouth means the catfish is an algae eater. I am pretty sure I asked for help on loaches for this article and on planetcatfish. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me. I have learned so much. Check out the pictures of my red lizard catfish. I was losing them due to a wrong diet. Now they are colorful, fat and healthy. It was funny chance that my catfish tank for the show is the same time as the article. I have been dreaming catfish lately. And the March issue of Tropical Fish Hobbiest is about keeping Whiptails by Neale Monks. Excellent. Couldn't have come at a better time.

The article has pictures of some of my catfish.

http://tbas1.com/TBASpdf/TBASfeb2011.pdf

There are other great articles in the newsletter. Let me know what you think.

That article was a good reminder to me that i need to stop being lazy and cut some veggies up, I have a Sailfin pleco that has learnt to swim upside down at the water surface so he can eat duck weed and veggie flake with the Uaru. I thought it was cool that he had worked that out the other one hasn't but my girlfriend said "it means he's hungry stupid"

A friend of mine uses boiled egg yoke to feed his Synodontis fry, they love it.

Ciao
Jeanine.

That was the purspose of the article. Just to get all us fish keepers aware of eating habits of our catfish. Thanks for reading it.

One of my farlowellas on zucchini this morning:

That's one beautiful, happy looking catfish. Ummm, yummy!

Great article Tanja!

My otos wont eat ANYTHING! I have tried a whack of different pellets, algae disks, and all kinds of veggies. Nothing. They only like the brown algae, and the occasional bit of green algae. What can I do?? They are fine, and growing, but there is hardly any algae! (good, and bad LOL!!) I am getting a new bit of driftwood for this tank, but what else can I do??

I wouldn't worry to greatly about the oto's.
If they look well fed but you don't see them eating they are probably getting food where you can't see them.

I used to have lots of Oto's (gave them away in favour of more Loaches)
And I never saw them eat anything, nor did I see them alot.
However when breaking down the tank I found out that I still had lots of them, very well fed and healty.

I suggest keep doing what your doing, and they will cath on that the stuff coming from above is actually food
They are tough little buggers once they are accustumed to your tank.

I agree with Francois. If your Oto's look happy and healthy they are finding what they need. I found that mine like plants with long round stems like Bananas. I can always find my Otos gumming those stems. I think they feel comfortable on plant stems, because they blend in a bit.

Yeah- they look fine! Just I have been reading a lot now!