Keeping Frozen food on the bottom

[colesea]

Okay, here's a brain teaser of a question...

If any of you have been following, Mr. Zippy the Zebra pleco is now going on his second week in residence here at Cole's Sea.  Thus far he seems perfectly fine.  Then again, considering this is the first time I've ever seen a zebra pleco in the fin, I can only make the assumption. But his color is good, no disease has popped up (although I know I've another two week incubation period to go), and the betta tankmate is thriving as he always has. Heck, even the snails seem to have made a reguvinating apperance (thought I got rid of the little suckers... *crazysmiley*)

He's even started to chill out up-side-down from the wood roof of his little cave. Heck, if the pleco is sucking on something, it's gotta be a healthy pleco.

Water color has cleared up since I added the new carbon. I still have not placed in the heater, and tank temps now are stable at 77-78oF. I guess as look as the temps move slowly as in the course of a natural day, it's okay. Winter will see the heater though.

Now the kicker is, bloodworm. I've dropped back to giving him frozen bloodworm only every other day (night actually, I feed before I go to bed so the lights are off and won't disturb his noctural habits), and giving him Hikari bottom waffers on the other. The problem is the bloodworm just floats around the tank and gets blown to bits by the filter waterfall. I know there are those worm-cones to put them in, but I don't know if Mr. Zippy will actually go to eat at it. I've tried burying a chunk of bloodworm in the gravel, but as it thawed, the pieces floated away again.  Mr. Zippy has to be eating something though, he's still alive, and if he scaving the bottom, that's fine, but I don't like the mess the pieces that get into the rock formation are making.

Any suggestions?
~~Colesea

 

[Avalon]

Hopefully I understood all that lingo you was slingin'! First of all, I'm not sure why you would want to feed your pleco bloodworms, but hey, to each her own. You'll prolly have the healthiest and most spoiled pleco around!

Here is what I would suggest. Get yourself a clay pot, or even a glass and set it on the bottom with the closed end positioned slightly higher than the open end. Bury half the thing if you want in the substrate. Place the frozen stuff in the pot or glass. It will hang in there and not float out (careful of the currents) since you positioned the cup right. Your pleco should catch on after a while and go right on in there and eat up all the bw's. You may want to drop the wafers in front of the cup on the "other days" to give him an idea of where the food's gonna be.  *thumbsupsmiley*

 

[colesea]

Thanks Avalon. I had thought I could do that with his little natural cave I made, but the roof isn't wide enough So much for keeping the tank biotyped (well, except for the betta  ). I'll see if I can get Zippy a new home.

BTW, this is a zebra pleco I'm talking about. Zebra plecos are known to be more carnivorous than some of your more common species such as the spotted or sailfin.  Zebra's reside primarily in wood-created riffles (ie dams of wood that make the water rush over them very rapidly).  There they munch happily away on the wood, and any protien that gets stuck in it. While they will munch plant matter, it is not the biggest part of their diets.
~~Colesea

 

[Avalon]

Yep, you're right about the meat eating pleco. I'm not too up on all the plecos, but I do know that Zebra plecos are beautiful! I hope you get something figured out, and lemme know how it turns out! I'm interested to hear if it works, or any variation thereof!  *celebratesmiley*

 

[wayne]

These are frozen bloodworms right, not freeze dried.  I simply take a square, and put them in warmish water.  As they defrost they will soak up water and I guess 95% sink, and the other 5% get lost when I drain off the water, I then put them in, and they sink......

 

[Backdraft Bagel]

Here's a weird trick - this has worked to make my cubes of bloodworms sink.

You need to buy some of the cubes that are prepackaged, in those neat little punch-paks that you just push out from the back. It functions sorta like an ice cube tray.

The problem is, the worms were fast frozen. There's air trapped in the cubes. If you let them melt once, for a VERY short time, the bubbles will migrate to the surface. Then refreeze them. Toss a whole cube in the aquarium. It should now sink within 10 seconds of being put in.

 

[colesea]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.  I do have the frozen pre-packaged bloodworm that look like they were in an ice cube tray. The only thing, Backdraft, is I would be concerned about the thawing making the bloodworm rot. Once frozen food is thawed, it starts going bad, so I don't know if re-freezing it is healthy. But if it has been working for you without a problem, I'll try that. I do have a shot glass as well that I use to soak the goldfish food, so I can soak the bloodworm before I feed Zippy. I didn't think of that. Time to get a brine shrimp net.

Just as a note to all, it seems Zebra Plecos don't like shrimp pellets.  I put some Wardly shrimp pellets in his tank last night just to spicen up the usual waffer fair, and I found shrimp pellet still in the tank this morning when I cleaned. Ah well, picky picky. My clown plecos love shrimp pellets, then again, it seems the clown plecos will eat just about anything that falls into the tank<G>.
~~Colesea

 

[Avalon]

Can you feed a pleco a raw piece of meat? Like a piece of red meat or maybe some shrimp?

 

[NickM]

Colesea, I feed clown loaches frozen blood worms.....what I do is take the cube, put it in a small bowl of tank water.  Stir it around until it melts, then take a turkey baster, suck up the blood worms and tank water, put it as far down in my tank as I can...and squeeze them out gently so that they go twards the bottom.  Voila, no blood worms on the top.