L138, just bought 2 of them...now what?

[Bahney]

i bought these on a bit of a whim, i wasent too sure how to keep them but at £5 each they were too cheap to turn down.

i was reliably informed they will grow to about 13cm but worryingly planet catfish says they grow to 11" ??

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=636

anyone have any ideas what they eat? what they like etc? anyone ever kept them before?

i have had a cucumber in the tank for a few hours and my BN are devouring it and the 2 L138's are not even giving it a second glance, are they carnivore? last thing i want is for them to starve to death ! :help:

thanks

[AnDr3w]

Just go for a mix of foods, and see what they like best. Try shrimp pellets and algae wafers.

[legendaryfrog]

I agree with andrew. Just offer the plec a mix of foods and see what they like best.

Many plecos, even ones of the same type, have different food preferences.


One of my normally omvivorous plecos (l-82, opal dot) came to have a likeing of live gouramis. LOL. He was cool.

[AnDr3w]

lol

[Bahney]

ok i will try a few things and see what they like, i only have algae wafers at the moment i will nip out and get a few more varieties of food for them and test to see what they like.

i will have to try and get some good pics of them because they are a beautiful colour and look very cool but i can hardly find any info on them, are they quite rare or something?

[jm1212]

cool plecos.

(well from the link)

[jac]

Try some peas or lettuce leaves weighted down. Good luck with them :)

[wataugachicken]

when they are first brought home, many plecos do not recognize fresh vegetables as food. either add a little fresh garlic to the water when you boil the veggies (and switch to zucchini instead of cucumber - more nutrients) or just wait a while. algae wafers and shrimp pellets should hold them over until they get up the courage to follow the BN's example and eat the better food.

[Bahney]

thanks for all the great advice, good news is they both appear to be munching on algae (well sucking on the glass a lot anyway) i have purposefully left algae on the glass for them, and they are sniffing around the algae tablets i have put in the tank for them as well which is a good sign!

They are defiantly nocturnal, remind me a lot of when i once had a gold nugget, it would hide all day but then as soon as you turn the lights out he would be all over the place, the pic i took tonight was after i quickly turned the lights on with camera at the ready.

because they are nocturnal i will create a few more caves in my new tank for them and make sure there is more hiding places (u can click on link in my sig for pics of new tank)

Thanks once again and fingers crossed they will stay nice and healthy :)

[Bahney]

i just thought i would update this thread incase anyone else searches the forum for "L138" like i did

it is all good news, both of them seem to be munching on cucumber, the key was instead of cutting medallion shaped pieces i sliced the cucumber lengthways and put that in the tank, one of the plecs layed intop of it i thnk by accident and started munching, now both of them love it!.

with both 138's and my 2 BN they can devour a 4inch piece of cucumber in about 24hours...greedy little @#$% lol

they change colour quite often to a kinda copper / black colour and then back to charcoal grey which is very cool to watch, and they venture out into the open a lot now, infact i rarely have to look for them they are usually sniffing about or chilling out ontop of the bogwood.

they seem very happy and content which is what i was looking for :)

thanks for all the help guys

ohh and as a little tip i sometimes push sinking catfish pellets into the cucumber which they seem to love or push a sinking shrimp pellet into the middle of it