Hi i was wondering if anyone had any ideas what type of plec i could keep in my malawi tank. I dont really want to keep a common or a gibb. i would like something more colourful than just brown . Not saying commons and gibbs are boring as i have both in other tanks of mine.
pleco for malawi tank
- Thread starter kelfy
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Generally Bristlenose ive seen most types of bristlenose in Malawi tanks. They do really well in malawi conditions.
I do know of a L128 living in a Malawi set up and has done for years and he is doing great.
With respect Bob. The L128 has been there for 5 years and is a fine example.
And Ive bred countless bristlenose in malawi tanks so they cant be that unhappy can they.
Everyones entitled to their own opinion.
i doubt that L128 liked being in with malawi's. :-/ My pH spiked from 6.8 to 7.5 and i lost quite a few small L128's a couple of months back now. so i hate to think what 8.0 + will do....
and for those sticking to a natural set-up, are there any plec's in africa for starters?
Tom
and for those sticking to a natural set-up, are there any plec's in africa for starters?
Tom
Well its not my tank for a start, i dont keep malawi anymore. But this fish is around 7inch now and has done a hell of a lot of growing in that tank, as i say its been there for 5 years, i personally would not do it but i can only say what ive seen. Bare in mind your local "idiot" who buys one and kills it within the first 6 months and you may agree that if a fish is putting on weight and seems very outgoing and feeds regular that it is somewhat "happy"
fair enough.... :whistle:
But back on topic, other than the gibby, common, and BN. there is really no other L number that you could put in a malawi set-up. end-of. if you look at water parameters from both the fishes natural habitats, you will find two different water conditions. Soft acidic water, pH from 6.0 - 7.0, KH and GH at bare minimum for the plec's, and hard alkaline water , pH from 7.8-8.5 and high GH and KH for the malawi's. plus the fact that most plecs like a good current in the water and the cichlids come from 'lake' malawi. also to my understanding malawi's like all cichlids can be very terrortorial and will kost likely nip and attack any plec trying to take refuge in a cave or other hidy hole.
simples :thumbup:
But back on topic, other than the gibby, common, and BN. there is really no other L number that you could put in a malawi set-up. end-of. if you look at water parameters from both the fishes natural habitats, you will find two different water conditions. Soft acidic water, pH from 6.0 - 7.0, KH and GH at bare minimum for the plec's, and hard alkaline water , pH from 7.8-8.5 and high GH and KH for the malawi's. plus the fact that most plecs like a good current in the water and the cichlids come from 'lake' malawi. also to my understanding malawi's like all cichlids can be very terrortorial and will kost likely nip and attack any plec trying to take refuge in a cave or other hidy hole.
simples :thumbup:
First problem is not the water, not the temp, it is the fact that it serves no reason apart from looking good
The fish is in a totally alien environment
Like placing a person from a city in the Forests of SEA
I am not going to bang on as my views are well known
Just it is some thing I would never do and I would always advise against it for the reasons stated.
My view is we unknowingly place far too many problems in the way of our fish to add more knowingly is wrong.
When working as the sales prevention officer in my LFS if some one would wish to do this I would under the Animal welfare act 2007 refuse.
The fish is in a totally alien environment
Like placing a person from a city in the Forests of SEA
I am not going to bang on as my views are well known
Just it is some thing I would never do and I would always advise against it for the reasons stated.
My view is we unknowingly place far too many problems in the way of our fish to add more knowingly is wrong.
When working as the sales prevention officer in my LFS if some one would wish to do this I would under the Animal welfare act 2007 refuse.
Im not convinced you actually believe what you type sometimes mate. :whistle:
Like placing a person from a city in a forest :dk:
Lots of people live very happy lives after moving from cities into the countryside, so is it the same for fish?, I imagine it will be ok and wouldnt stay up all night worrying about it. I always say if a fish is breeding its happy, and have had plenty of bristlenose breed in malawi tanks. Just dont expect much young off them. But then again maybe ive been cruel in the past when malawi have beat me to the bristlenose fry. :dk:
Because fry all survive in the wild dont they :wb:
P
Plecomadman
Guest
IMO that is a load of info that is very much presumed amongst the hobby trad and will be for years to come.
Adaptation is very much apart of life and in all walks of life, fish adapt extremely well to conditions not conventionally ideal for them, infact ive seen fish adapt over periods of time better than humans would.
As to your put a city dweller into the country and he wouldn't be happy?, logic is all thrown out of the window here im afraid, i live in a very well known city and i assure you if somebody offered me a house within a remote country environment i would bite there hand off.
If things weather it be fish or any 'life form' couldn't adapt and didn't adapt then we including all fish would be extinct by now. the environment over the last 50 years has pretty much proved this with the volume of natural disasters happening and people adapting to what ever the outcome may be.
So basically the end result is the fish may not be ideally suited to the tank initially, the fish could quite well survive and adapt (as long as it survives long enough) to any reasonable change to it's natural environment.
Take putting wild fish in a tank?, completely different environment to it natural habitat but yet survives and often flourishes and may even breed for you. The fish as Joe mentions is breeding, this is a clear indication that the fish is somewhat happy dont you think?.
I personally wouldn't keep malawi's so me putting a plec in there wouldn't happen anyways but dont just dismiss the persons questions becasue you have your own opinions, you have your right to have the opinions you have tried to get across but becasue there your opinions, doesn't make them 100% correct.
Out of curiosity do you have any scientific material to back your claims or is it just assumptions becasue you know there wild conditions?.
A Post of reason
.
If you feel the need to comment about it then you should provide the reasons it will not benefit them, Rather than just saying its not what the fish wants or words to that effect. I have already provided you with information of bristlenose breeding in malawi tanks.
P
Plecomadman
Guest
Isn't this the easiest question to question out of everything that has been asked?
Keeping the fish is becasue the person wants to keep a plec within his malawi setup, same reason why you want to keep a plec in your setup.
No real reason or a hidden agenda other than wanting to keep a tropical aquarium and have fish in it so be it a molly, platy or a plec.
Why do you keep the fish you have?, what purpose do you see of you keeping fish in the first place?. I'm presuming the answer will be pretty much the same answers in general to the OP.
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Bob, one can only do so much, at the walls of your tank are glass, which you use to view them, same as everyone else. The river doesnt have glass walls to allow you to view them. You use airstones to help with oxygen levels. The river doesnt. And im pretty sure that the river doesnt have an external filter, The plecs dont live on algea wafers or catfish sinkers. So whilst you are trying to mimic their wild conditions theres only 2 options, accept that people do things differently and that your way is not the only way or go put all your fish back in the correct rivers and get ureself a snorkle and mask instead of a tank :dk:
Hi all,
I'm not going to get involved in the argument as such, but I'd agree with the other posters about the unsuitability of plecs for Malawi tanks. I know Synodontis catfish don't do the same job, but they do come from the rift lakes and are better adapted to the water, particularly the Lake Malawi native S. njassae. Details here: <http://malawicichlids.com/mw11003a.htm>.
There is a real scientific reason for not putting soft water fish in hard water.
First up Lake Malawi is fairly carbonate rich (high kH), and well buffered, so the water is very different to any in S. America, where even the white water rivers are carbonate poor (low KH).
You can get a breakdown of the water for the Rift Lakes which shows why you shouldn't keep Lakes Tanganyika cichlids with Malawis, <http://malawicichlids.com/mw01011.htm> and just how alkaline Lake Tanganyika is.
I was quite interested in this as well, L273 wrote:
It is also a LOGbase10 scale meaning that pH6 has 10X more H+ ions than pH7, but 100X more than pH8 and 1000X more than pH9.
Because of this log scale the difference from pH6.8 to pH7.5, even though we have gone from "acid" to "alkaline", is relatively small, less than x10 fewer H+ ions, and much less than say going from pH8.2 to pH8.8. and as such it is very unlikely to have caused the fish enough of a problem to kill them.
In water with little (bi)carbonate buffering ((HCO3-) CO3-) the pH can fluctuate really wildly. This is why people who add CO2 (which will go into solution as "carbonic acid" - H2CO3) to their tanks, buffer the water up to 4dKH.
The factor relevant to plecs is that even if S. American rivers (like the upper Amazon - Rio Ucayáli) that have pH above pH7, they have virtually no carbonate buffering (dKH) and that pH can fluctuate.
As I said earlier this is because we are talking about both a ratio (pH), and also amount of solute (ions or buffering). In the Rio Ucayali situation we have a 1:1 ratio (pH7), but low levels of dissolved ions (measured as the TDS or electrical conductivity). This means as soon as we add any acid producing substances (tannins from dead leaves, humic acids from organic matter) the pH will drop rapidly.
In the case of the carbonate buffered water we might still have a 1:1 ratio of ions and pH of pH7 (if there are lots of both acid and alkali ions and a high TDS) but it will take a large addition of acid to make the pH drop. This is the important bit, fish are actually much less sensitive to pH than we think. What causes the problems are the amount of solutes and their nature, which we see reflected as the pH. The Lake Malawi tank isn't unsuitable for any plec because it has a high pH, it is unsuitable because the water is full of alkaline ions. We could balance those ions by adding an acidic salt like sodium bisulphate (NaHSO4), this would lower the pH, but the water would have even more salts (as ions) than it did before and would be even more unsuitable for fish originating from soft water.
cheers Darrel
I'm not going to get involved in the argument as such, but I'd agree with the other posters about the unsuitability of plecs for Malawi tanks. I know Synodontis catfish don't do the same job, but they do come from the rift lakes and are better adapted to the water, particularly the Lake Malawi native S. njassae. Details here: <http://malawicichlids.com/mw11003a.htm>.
There is a real scientific reason for not putting soft water fish in hard water.
First up Lake Malawi is fairly carbonate rich (high kH), and well buffered, so the water is very different to any in S. America, where even the white water rivers are carbonate poor (low KH).
You can get a breakdown of the water for the Rift Lakes which shows why you shouldn't keep Lakes Tanganyika cichlids with Malawis, <http://malawicichlids.com/mw01011.htm> and just how alkaline Lake Tanganyika is.
I was quite interested in this as well, L273 wrote:
First of all sorry for your loss, but I don't think pH was the only issue here, or possibly not even an issue at all. The reason I say this is that pH is a bit of a funny measurement, it is the ratio of acid:alkaline ions, expressed as the "negative log of the H+ ion concentration" not a very useful definition, but what it means is that at neutral pH7 you have the equivalent of equal numbers of H+ (hydrogen ion) & OH- (hydroxide ion) (from the dissolution of H2O = pure water).
It is also a LOGbase10 scale meaning that pH6 has 10X more H+ ions than pH7, but 100X more than pH8 and 1000X more than pH9.
Because of this log scale the difference from pH6.8 to pH7.5, even though we have gone from "acid" to "alkaline", is relatively small, less than x10 fewer H+ ions, and much less than say going from pH8.2 to pH8.8. and as such it is very unlikely to have caused the fish enough of a problem to kill them.
In water with little (bi)carbonate buffering ((HCO3-) CO3-) the pH can fluctuate really wildly. This is why people who add CO2 (which will go into solution as "carbonic acid" - H2CO3) to their tanks, buffer the water up to 4dKH.
The factor relevant to plecs is that even if S. American rivers (like the upper Amazon - Rio Ucayáli) that have pH above pH7, they have virtually no carbonate buffering (dKH) and that pH can fluctuate.
As I said earlier this is because we are talking about both a ratio (pH), and also amount of solute (ions or buffering). In the Rio Ucayali situation we have a 1:1 ratio (pH7), but low levels of dissolved ions (measured as the TDS or electrical conductivity). This means as soon as we add any acid producing substances (tannins from dead leaves, humic acids from organic matter) the pH will drop rapidly.
In the case of the carbonate buffered water we might still have a 1:1 ratio of ions and pH of pH7 (if there are lots of both acid and alkali ions and a high TDS) but it will take a large addition of acid to make the pH drop. This is the important bit, fish are actually much less sensitive to pH than we think. What causes the problems are the amount of solutes and their nature, which we see reflected as the pH. The Lake Malawi tank isn't unsuitable for any plec because it has a high pH, it is unsuitable because the water is full of alkaline ions. We could balance those ions by adding an acidic salt like sodium bisulphate (NaHSO4), this would lower the pH, but the water would have even more salts (as ions) than it did before and would be even more unsuitable for fish originating from soft water.
cheers Darrel
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Plecomadman
Guest
dw1305 that was extremely informative, i pretty much new the basics of what you wrote but wording it correctly would have been a good 6 months task lol.
However, yes most would know that the reason is as youve mentioned but the scientific evaluation you put really is a wild to wild basis surely?. It still doesn't give the adapting potential for fish to be able to live out of the 'norm' if the need is great.
I'm interested to know is the info youve given above reflected to wild rivers only?, wouldn't it be somewhat different to tank bred fish and water that actually comes from your tap. I would imagine the buffering capacity (ie the basics) is the same in either wild rivers and tap water but would the differences between the 2 be enough to take your equation out of the picture in a home aquarium environment becasue we are talking tap water.
Alot of people keep malawi's in soft water area's and use the buffering capacity of ocean rock/coral etc to raise 'PH' (buffering) capacity but surely this isn't any where near the same as a wild type river. So from this basis wouldn't the info you have given be a little off for a home aquarium environment and leave much more potential for fish to live in vastly different conditions?.
However, yes most would know that the reason is as youve mentioned but the scientific evaluation you put really is a wild to wild basis surely?. It still doesn't give the adapting potential for fish to be able to live out of the 'norm' if the need is great.
I'm interested to know is the info youve given above reflected to wild rivers only?, wouldn't it be somewhat different to tank bred fish and water that actually comes from your tap. I would imagine the buffering capacity (ie the basics) is the same in either wild rivers and tap water but would the differences between the 2 be enough to take your equation out of the picture in a home aquarium environment becasue we are talking tap water.
Alot of people keep malawi's in soft water area's and use the buffering capacity of ocean rock/coral etc to raise 'PH' (buffering) capacity but surely this isn't any where near the same as a wild type river. So from this basis wouldn't the info you have given be a little off for a home aquarium environment and leave much more potential for fish to live in vastly different conditions?.