anyone ever heard of or tried this????

[AndyAps.com]

hi all, i have been searching the web for all things zebra pleco and came across this site, im quite interested in the comment bleow about using Guppies to produce food (the fry) for the zebra's. i have tried something like this before with spawning zebra danios but the danios also competed for too much food and were to quick for the zebs which made them nervous. maybe it would be an interseting suppliment with slower less competetive guppies.
Has anyone ever tried this?

I also have a breeding pair of guppies to produce food for the zebras and as indicator fish.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~zebra/zebra_pleco.htm

[McEve]

I somehow can't picture a Zebra hunting for live fry... They are scavengers as far as I've been able to observe

[CDNAqua]

Hi,

Agreed, Zebs are scavengers and mostly likely they would not catch many guppies.

I think feeding guppies is viable and good especially if you gut load them before feeding to zebs.

Unforturatly, Zebs being scavengers. I suggest you pre-kill the guppies first so zebs can scavenge the carcass and thier freshly loaded gut.

peace


Troy

[dave]

While feeding live food, or freshly killed food may be essential for some of the animals including fish that we keep in our homes, and if this is the case so be it.

But people are keeping L46's successfully without undertaking this practice, so really I can't see the point.

While I'm all for innovative ideas that lead to advances in fish husbandry, here I can see only downsides.

1. If kept with the zebras it will increase the biological load on the tank.

2. Kept on there own use the tank for something else.

If anybody knows of any advantages please post.

Daqve

[NetsuaiAngel]

I kept two mating pairs of guppies in with my zebras and my zebras took no interest in the guppies because they are such high top dwellers.

With the pack of guppies I kept, they didn't like the high temps that zebras are kept in. My tank is kept at about 86F and guppies tend to like it much lower, so they would often 'clog' my intake filter when they died. The warm water really speeds up their matabolism, which means more fish waste in the water because they would eat so much.

And when guppies spawn...their spawn are really tiny and I would find 10-12 baby fry at the bottom of my wet/dry. This means, those fry made is passed my sponge filter and through the drip tray and the filter material under that. That's another pain to 'fish' them out and prevent them from ending up in same place again.

The guppies that were brave to swim to the lower levels of the tank would 'nip' at my baby fry. I was not happy with that.

Another thing with keeping guppies and zebras, is that guppies seem to find it hard to contend with the high flow rate in zebra tanks. I have one surviving guppy that has survived the whole ordeal my tank went through and he seems to barely hold on for dear life with the flow rate right now. I'll let some of my plants float to the top to help break up the current for him. Poor baby.

So personally, I don't see a plus in keeping guppies in with zebras.

[andrewcoxon]

i keep 2004 yellow top sword endlers in with my zebras and they breed all the time but the zebras never show any interest in either the full grown fish or the fry....

[AndyAps.com]

WOW......Thanks everyone for posting, and interesting thought then but an overwhelming NO vote on that one.
on the other hand i did see the zebs eating the danio fry when i tried that but the danios were to competative as previously explained.
And i also agree with dave on why bother increasing the bio load of the tank when there are so many other food options.

Thanks again everyone for contributing