Plants Being Eaten

[Dreamroper]

Hello,

For the first time ever, someone is eating my plants. My Amazon Swords look like someone worked their way up and down the leaf. The only fish that I have that I have never had before are YoYo loaches. Are they doing the damage?

Thanks,
D

 

[charliebankston]

Any new plants added recently?

 

[charliebankston]

I recently read where yoyo loaches will poke or eat little holes in plants, except ferns mainly. If you've recently gotten snails in your tank, they'll eat plants. Good news with that is loaches love to chomp on snails

 

[Dreamroper]

Hi Charlie,
No, no new plants. The Amazon plant is one of my oldest plants so I hope it doesn't get destroyed. I've never seen anything like this. Two leaves are completely eaten down. On the bright side, the MTS population is down, but I don't want my plants to suffer. I really like the YoYos but I'll have to rehome them if they are destroying my plants.

 

[charliebankston]

Yeah, I hear that. I read where they will damage plants eating snails off them, but my understanding was minor damage, not like you have

 

[Autumnsky]

Amazon Swords like some substrate fertilizers and sometimes the leaves will start decaying and look a bit feathery (don't ask me how I know.... ) I have had six very mature and large Yoyo's in a planted tank, and I never noticed damage. They are in a different tank now and there is only floating Swords and Anubias and Bolbitis.

Try feeding them a bit more food if you do not already. They like meatier wafers and I give mine frozen cubes defrosted of Marine Cuisine, Spirulina Brine shrimp, Formula 2 Ocean Nutrition, Mini Mysis ( cause of my other fish size) but I think they could eat medium sized Mysis just fine if they can eat snails. Hikari Crab Cuisine and Omnivore sinking wafers these are both gobbled up and easy to find at lfs. (plus a ton of misc foods like Northfin and Fluval Bug Bites, Omega One.

 

[Caliban07]

Do you have a pleco?

 

[Dreamroper]

No, I don't have a pleco, and these leaves were definitely chewed down. I watch my tank carefully every day, and the plants were fine at night when I turned the light off and chewed off the next morning.

I will start feeding more, and I have some shrimp wafers that I forgot to put in that night. Maybe that's why?

I don't know, but these leaves were absolutely devoured with just the middle part remaining. I was shocked when I saw them!