Zebra Plecos Not Growing Help Please!

[Pleco crazy]

Please help me I bought two very healthy looking zebra plecs about 2cm but I've had them 7 months, and it doesn't look like they have grown any bigger my ph etc are fine and I feed them a small bit of tetra prima pellets by straw directly to there hide out, and have seen them eat it and I've now and then fed them bloodworm ( scared they might choke) the have a tank to themselves please please can anyone help I love zebras but feel I'm not doing enough on my part or are they meant to grow that slow? Thanks mark.

 

[fluttermoth]

How big is the tank and how many (and how big) water changes are you doing?

 

[Moby-Krib]

fluttermoth Don't even give the debunked answer of hormones in water please... you have no founded ground to do so and you know it.
Not a single study from a legitimate source will uphold that.
however if I;m off base and your going elsewhere your normally a spot on bit of advice.

 

[thereverendturtle]

Vary their diet a bit. Add sinking wafers, brine shrimp, mysis, zucchini, carrots, bog wood if you don't have some already. Check out www.planetcatfish.com for more specifics on your particular species. There are a couple of zebra plecos, so something may be off, or you might just have slow growers.

 

[Pleco crazy]

How big is the tank and how many (and how big) water changes are you doing?

Hi, it 2 and a half foot wide, and 1half foot height, to be honest I have not done any water changers was scared to upset the water lol but I do top it up once every 2 weeks, I'll upload a photo if I can thx

 

[Pleco crazy]

How big is the tank and how many (and how big) water changes are you doing?

Hi, it 2 and a half foot wide, and 1half foot height, to be honest I have not done any water changers was scared to upset the water lol but I do top it up once every 2 weeks, I'll upload a photo if I can thx

I put 2 danios and 2 neon to make them feel more at home they have been in 2 weeks going to take them out today tho.

 

[fluttermoth]

fluttermoth Don't even give the debunked answer of hormones in water please... you have no founded ground to do so and you know it.
Not a single study from a legitimate source will uphold that.
however if I;m off base and your going elsewhere your normally a spot on bit of advice.

I was going to go sort of down that road yes!
As far as I'm aware there's no conclusive evidence to either prove or disprove the hypothesis (if you have some, do post, I'd be very interested to see it) but, just from personal experience I've found that fish do grow better in tanks with a heavy water change schedule.

Whether that's due to hormones, high nitrate, or some other reason I won't pretend to know.

OP; I think everyone will agree, even if it's for different reasons, that young fish grow better when given plenty of food, a varied diet and plenty of water changes. 'Small amounts' of food won't be enough for them and two weeks without water changes isn't great either. Sort those out and I'm sure your fish will grow more.

 

[angelfishguy]

Moby-krib

Have a read of this

Basicaly it says goldfish along with other fish release (pheromone){(gamma)-aminobutyric acid (or GABA) which stunts growth.

https/course.ku.ac.th/lms/files/resources_files/75608/125399/trudeau.pdf

 

[Pleco crazy]

fluttermoth Don't even give the debunked answer of hormones in water please... you have no founded ground to do so and you know it.
Not a single study from a legitimate source will uphold that.
however if I;m off base and your going elsewhere your normally a spot on bit of advice.

I was going to go sort of down that road yes!
As far as I'm aware there's no conclusive evidence to either prove or disprove the hypothesis (if you have some, do post, I'd be very interested to see it) but, just from personal experience I've found that fish do grow better in tanks with a heavy water change schedule.

Whether that's due to hormones, high nitrate, or some other reason I won't pretend to know.

OP; I think everyone will agree, even if it's for different reasons, that young fish grow better when given plenty of food, a varied diet and plenty of water changes. 'Small amounts' of food won't be enough for them and two weeks without water changes isn't great either. Sort those out and I'm sure your fish will grow more.

How often do I feed them as I don't wanto over or underfeed them? Thanks for everyone's help.

fluttermoth Don't even give the debunked answer of hormones in water please... you have no founded ground to do so and you know it.
Not a single study from a legitimate source will uphold that.
however if I;m off base and your going elsewhere your normally a spot on bit of advice.

Thanks

 

[Pleco crazy]

Moby-krib

Have a read of this

Basicaly it says goldfish along with other fish release (pheromone){(gamma)-aminobutyric acid (or GABA) which stunts growth.

https/course.ku.ac.th/lms/files/resources_files/75608/125399/trudeau.pdf

Thanks for everyone's help but how often should I feed the once a day or twice aday? Or more? Thx

 

[angelfishguy]

When im trying to get fish to grow a little faster i feed them 3 small feedings a day.

 

[fluttermoth]

How often do I feed them as I don't wanto over or underfeed them? Thanks for everyone's help.

I would feed them last thing at night, and clean up anything left in the morning with a water change. If there's nothing left, feed a bit more until there is a bit left. You almost inevitably do overfeed growing fish, as you don't want them going hungry.

 

[Pleco crazy]

How often do I feed them as I don't wanto over or underfeed them? Thanks for everyone's help.

I would feed them last thing at night, and clean up anything left in the morning with a water change. If there's nothing left, feed a bit more until there is a bit left. You almost inevitably do overfeed growing fish, as you don't want them going hungry.

Ok thanks everyone the feedback has been a great help, I've been stressing over it for a while now. Thanks Mark.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

OK- just responded in another thread to this- but that thread contained less information than this one. Zebras are one of the fish made unhappy by nitrates, especially when the fish are young. So please begin doing weekly water changes for them. Hypancistrus in general can handle 'dirtier" water than many other fish. But this is after they have gained a bit of size from being newborns. Bear in mind they live in seasonal waters which change parameters, sometime rapidly, in response to the change from dry to rainy season and back again. The fry are born as the change from dry to rainy occurs. This means their first 6 months or so are in pretty clean water.

As for the article linked above, I scanned through it and could not dind any indication that the hormones released were being released anywhere but into the bloodstream of the fish and not into the water. I could be wrong as I did not read it thoroughly.

However, there is an old breeders trick used by some folks with their fish. During spawning, hormones get released. When a breeder is having problems getting other similar fish to spawn they will often take water from a tank where the fish are spawning and put it into the water of the the fish they want to start up. this is typical among Angel and cory breeders and I have heard of it being used for plecos as well. While I am not certain here again, I would think that carbon would remove the hormones from tank water as do as water changes (but these do more than just removing hormones).

In terms of hormones in the water and potential problems, my take is it doesnt much matter. There are so many other things that typically can "foul" tank water- from the build up of solids to nitrate or acids etc. that a good water change regimin is always in order. Unless one is trying to simulate the dry season (where appropriate) there is never much reason for not providing fish with clean water. Let me know when you have reasonable evidence of any fish dying because their water was too clean.

Feed the fish daily- I normally do one starve day a week a(not for smaller fry. Feed them a more varied diet which includes vegetable matter as well as meaty foods. Read my reply here http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/396322-how-much-for-a-zebra-pleco/page__gopid__3397303#entry3397303

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I'm absolutely convinced there is something released by fish that inhibits typical fast growth rates, based on my own experiences with raising Lionhead Cichlid fry over the last two years...

My first brood of Lionhead Cichlid fry started with 14 coming out of the cave, one died within a week and the other 13 were 5.5-7cm SL in ~7.5 months.

The second brood of ~50, which were integrated with the 4 survivors of the third brood (elder siblings were eating newborns before I realised the parents had spawned in the presence of other youngsters), have taken 8 months to reach >5cm SL males and the males are still just over over 4cm SL. This bigger group have had much more food, much more filtration and considerably more water changes (typically two 33-50% minimum per week), yet they are growing at such a slow rate in the same Rio240, albeit I did have them in my 620T for about two months.



Anyway, back to your Zebra Plecos, varying their diet will no doubt help (I use Tetra Prima as a staple in all my tanks alongside Hikari algae wafers; JMC catfish pellets; Hikari carnivore pellets; Doromin; Hikari Cichlid Gold floating pellets).