Bottom Feeder?

[grimlock3000]

During my weekly gravel vac, I get clouds of waste from my 26g tank gravel. Nothing out of the ordinary, I only feed the fish once a day.

In the 10g tank, I barely get anything out of the gravel. I have to hunt around to find much of anything in the gravel. The gravel stays WAY cleaner than in the larger tank.

I tried feeding both tanks the SAME ammount of food for a week. Less fish, smaller tank... The 10g gravel should have been a mess. The gravel in the 10g was still cleaner

Is this because of the Cory Cats that spend all day poking around in the gravel and keeping the waster stirred up until a filter catches it? I am thinking about moving the Cories to the 26g or getting a Yo-Yo Loach for the 26g.

 

[krap101]

id say corys. their so cute

 

[QTOFFER]

The corys may well be keeping the place clean, but much also depends on your substrate. In my betta tank, for example, the two outer compartments that house corys and a sponge filter always have a good amount of gravel grunge (mostly uneaten sinking wafers and cory poop)while the middle compartment (betta only) is always clean. I have pretty a coarse substrate and the corys may not be able to reach the stuff that falls in.

I'm also pretty sure that a bushynose pleco generates way more poop than a group of corys.

 

[krap101]

lol. when i had my common pleco he had some poops like 5x longer then himself 8P

 

[TankGirl]

Good point, QTOFFER - do you happen to have laterite mixed with the gravel in the 26? When I used laterite (buried as the first layer underneath the gravel) I could never control the mulm-looking waste that collected on the bottom. I finally figured out it was the laterite. It made the bottom look dusty and dirty all of the time.

This is an interesting question, though if the substrate is the same. I guess the cories could keep things stirred up to an extent.

 

[Mere Air]

I really like ghost shrimp. With or without cories, my 10-gallon stays spotless. Ghost shrimp will even clean up any fish waste they find. The sand substrate helps, too -- no crevices for food and waste to drift into.

 

[Fruitbat]

If you're thinking about a YoYo Loach for the 26 gallon....think more seriously about at least 2 of them. Botia almorhae, like many other Botia species, likes the company of its own kind.

 

[grimlock3000]

Both of my tanks have the exact same substrate, different colors, no additives. I was thinking my Pleco had something to do with it, that is why I started feeding both tanks the same ammounts of food to see what happened. With the 10g, there is just hardly any waste in the gravel no matter what I do.

I have decent water movement in the 26g. The biggest different I can think of is that nothing in the 26g ever picks over the gravel so anything that hits a spot in the gravel, stays there until it breaks down. While in the 10g, the waste lands, but at some point the Catfish will come by and see if its edible which tosses it up into the tank again.

My 26g tank is turning into a mess with different fish types and colors My 10g tank looks good, all of the fish are either blue + red (Neons, Betta), or plain ugly brown.

 

[grimlock3000]

Got two YoYos acclimating now. What a couple of little cuties!

//Update// I have been watching the YoYos go around the tank in the dark with just the room light on. They look really smart (for fish) and have been going all over the tank exploring it. They spent time time sitting in the Pleco cave with their heads hanging out. Not sure how much the Pleco enjoyed that but there is room in the cave for everyone if they play nice