Habitat - Indoor :: poop cleaners

[jeggy]

my tutle has eaten: 1 pleco, 1 crayfish, 2 dozen small neon tetras, a dozen ghost shrimps, 1 beta, a few goldfish, about 5 alge eaters, countless feeder rosies, a cichlid, and a tadpole

[buffyfan9005]

daredevilgirl013, I'm thinking of getting a pleco. A friend of mine has a huge one that she's wanting to get rid of. Do you find the pleco beneficial to the tank cleaning? I'm just not sure if I want to take it or not.

[sonyj]

daredevilgirl013, I'm thinking of getting a pleco. A friend of mine has a huge one that she's wanting to get rid of. Do you find the pleco beneficial to the tank cleaning? I'm just not sure if I want to take it or not.

I know you didn't ask me, but I'll put my two cents worth in anyway , I've figured out and read elsewhere also, that pleco's are more just for algae control than anything. It wasn't until after I got the snails that I noticed a difference in the tank bottom and the amount of waste there.

[daredevilgirl013]

My snails weren't eating the alge that was next to the glass where the plants are, and this guy is making his rounds. He's all over the tank. I think he's doing a better job compared to my snails as he is bigger and that's his main staple of food so he has to have it. The only problem is, there is alge all over the turtle dock yet no one has been up there to clean it. (I even put a snail on there and it just plopped off like it didn't want anything to do with it) But I think he's doing a good job with everyone else working together. He mainly just sticks to the glass and the big rocks I have in the tank while the snails, shrimps, and guppies go and clean up the bottom of the tank, the fake plants, and the real plants.

[buffyfan9005]

Do you feed your pleco or snails anything or do they rely on simply what's just hanging out in the tank (algae, waste)?

sonyj, I do have algae that I wouldn't mind the pleco cleaning up. The shells and bottom of the left side of my tank under the basking light have a bit of algae that is always hanging around. I'm just thinking that the pleco too would create waste and wouldn't that dirty up the water also?

[sonyj]

When I put squash or zucchini in the tank for Koopa, the pleco and snails always eat what he doesn't want. That way I don't worry about Koopa eating the algae wafers (he did once before the pleco got to it).

The pleco does create more waste but I think it's minimal compared to the turtle.

[buffyfan9005]

So you do have to feed snails and plecos actual store bought food just for them?

[ellman605]

no, my snail thrives off of anything on the bottom, but i suggest an anachris, anything the turtle leaves or doesnt eat, the fish will get into, and my snail just hangs onto the anachris when i get it.

[daredevilgirl013]

My big snail he gets three bunches of Anacharis a week as he goes through it. The little ones, give them some lettuce and they'll be fine or a bundle of Anacharis as they don't eat much and yours looks little.

My pleco does not get fed any fish food. He just eats alge and that's all he gets. As for waste, I haven't noticed an increase at all. The water looks better in fact.

[RESCHIU]

Turtle would never eat something that's bigger than he is right? do pleco eat turtle waste(poop) too? I'm thinking about getting a pleco too, but my boyfriend keep telling me my 2 filters are enough and that he doesn't want me to see my turtle eating pleco one day...I have a 10 gal. tank by the way with about 5 gal. of water.

Also, I'm just curious, how long and under what environment would it take for the tank to have algae? I haven't seen algae growth yet ever since I got my 10 gal. tank, I do small water change everyday and one big change every week, and I don't have water plant, is this why I never seen one?

[daredevilgirl013]

Yeah probably you don't see any alge because of that big water change. I hadn't changed my water in three weeks and I noticed the alage just kinda popped up over night. Plecos do not eat turtle waste as far as I know, just alge, so if you have no alge the pleco will not survive. But it is cool to see him clinging to the side of the tank.

As for turtles won't eat anything bigger than themselves, I don't know. I have a snail and the pleco is bigger than Michelangelo and he nips at the big snail but has not killed him or ate him and he has yet to bug the pleco. But he has eaten my little snails and a guppy.

[Giddy]

I belong to a lot of fish boards, due to having fish.

And it is pretty common knowledge among those boards that snails do NOT eat the poo, they make poo, and lots of it. People will frequently pop in asking about poo cleaners thinking a snail will be great and it just does not work that way.

They may pick through it and try to find something. But a snail will die eventually if left to scavenge from what is in the tank.

Snails have a diet requiremnet just like turtles or fish. You can find a lot of good info on snails online.

[daredevilgirl013]

Yeah snails can die without the right stuff but they eat fish food, aquatic plants, veggies (mine love carrots), and algae. Mine have done wonderfully (also snails will eat each other..scary no?) So it's not really all that bad, they basically eat what the turtle eats or won't eat after he gets done with his meal. So really the snail and turtle go hand in hand.

[jeggy]

my turtle always swallows the rosies whole. as do my cichlids and my garfish.